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THE VEDDER LECTURES, 1877. 


THE SGlEey ee 


OF 


REVEALED TRUTH IMPREGNABLE 


AS SHOWN BY THE ARGUMENTATIVE FAILURES OF 


Infidelity and Theoretical Geology. 


A Course of Lectures 


DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY AND OF RUTGERS COLLEGE, AT 
NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, 


BS BY 
5 
W: R..GORDON; S.T.D. 


AUTHOR OF ‘‘THE SUPREME GODHEAD OF CHRIST,” “PARTICULAR 
PROVIDENCE PROVED BY THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH,” “A THREE- 
FOLD TEST OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM,” ‘‘ESSAYS ON THE 
COMING AND KINGDOM OF CHRIST,” ‘“‘THE CHURCH 
AND HER SACRAMENTS,” ETC., ETC. 


“Lie not against the Truth.”—JAMES 3: 14. 


NEw YORK: 
BOARD OF PUBLICATION OF THE REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA, 
34 VESEY STREET. 


1878, 


ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, 
By WILLIAM R. GORDON, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


PROPERTY gf 
PRINCETON 


acO, NOV 1850 
‘ EV YGY ron 3 . 
POCO s baae 5 
SU rye = ae 
GON TEN FS: 
LECTURE I. 
PAGE 
TRUTH IN GENERAL, REVEALED TRUTH IN PARTICULAR. 
THE @ priori ARGUMENT, .. : : ; . 9 
LECTURE HII. 
REVEALED TRUTH. THE 4 fosteriori ARGUMENT, + 2 69 


LECTURE III. 


REVEALED TRUTH. THE @ fosteriort ARGUMENT, . oe 123 


LECTURE IV. 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY AND THE MosAIC COSMOGONY, . 177 


LECTURE V. 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY AND THE MosAIc COSMOGONY, 237 


PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 


—___—_ 4 ¢ __— 


Tue “Church militant” is a phrase which, 
however distasteful, the Church is obliged toown 
as measurably descriptive, because of the antag- 
onism of the world. In her current history cir- 
cumstances often arise, through the tactics of her 
enemies, that require restatements and new ad- 
justments of the general argument by which the 
interests of revealed truth must ever be de- 
fended. From this contest she need expect no ex- 
emption until her Lord shall come to put an end 
to it. Meanwhile, however weary, she must not 
grow impatient in the necessary duty of “ con- 
tending for the faith once delivered to the saints.” 
The exigencies of the times, if we may judge from 
his ‘‘ Will,” seemed to the Founder of this lec- 
tureship to require such a presentation of the 
argument anew as should pay especial attention 
to the “present aspects of modern infidelity,” 
which, seemingly, are as newly chiselled faces to 
the old stones of a badly battered and dismantled 
fortress. Whatever the aspects, however, infidel- 
ity is always and everywhere the same old malig- 
nant in spirit and intent; but its weapons and its 


6 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 


onsets may be expected to vary with the fancies 
and self-accredited resources of new opponents. 
To meet this requirement is the aim of the present 
volume. Recently new champions, calling them- 
selves scientists, have taken the field, and propose 
to continue a raking fire upon the Bible, converg- 
ing from castles in the air, based upon the Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis, and from the earthworks erected 
upon the ground of Theoretical Geology, which 
they seem to think will do the business for the 
old book and all its adherents; especially since 
some of its avowed friends have taken in hand to 
reconcile it with these scientists’ position—admitted 
by said friends to be irrefutable—whom on that 
account they hail as efficient coadjutors in demol- 
ishing the citadel of Christianity. Though in 
their judgment nothing is needed in its place, 
yet they propose, as best befitting human faith, 
the old theory of Materialism, with old cognate 
errors, to which they have added some fantastic 
ones of their own; and thus, with other revivals, 
we are to have, mayhap, a revival of Paganism 
within the domain of the Gospel! By large 
pretensions to wisdom—we do not dispute their 
knowledge—as advanced scientists, entitled on 
that account to lead in the van of public 
opinion, and to the deference of the world as 
well, they seek to overawe the zgnorance of 
theologians and of all Christian people. Such 
are the facts just now. This determination ap- 
pears to be as serenely calm as the bosom of that 
ancestral sponge at the bottom of the deep from 
which they say they have been developed. In 


PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 7 


the present attempt nothing new is sought, be- 
cause nothing new is needed; and nothing new 
will be expected, unless it be in arrangement, 
adaptation, and method required by the new 
‘position and approved missiles of modern assail- 
ants. They, however, only superadd physics to 
metaphysics ; and, by the help of the living and the 
dead, hope to make the combination argumenta- 
tively successful. Moreover, they are greatly en- 
couraged in their hope of success by the writ- 
ings of certain Christian geologists, who having 
adopted their theory of the vast age of the earth, 
have attempted to force the cosmogony of Moses 
into harmony with it. Such efforts have not only 
failed, but have yielded all that infidelity cares 
to ask for the logical subversion of the Scriptures 
as the inspired Word of God given to man as his 
only rule of faith and practice. This advantage 
bestowed upon modern infidelity was by no means 
meant; on the contrary, it was intended to take 
away the infidel’s objection to the Bible, arising 
from his theoretical geology ; but it has had the 
contrary effect, and elicited his contempt instead 
of his admiration, while he rejoices in the conces- 
sions made. In the last two lectures the author 
has attempted, so far as he could, to undo the 
mischief unintentionally occasioned. The effort 
may cost, but he feels willing to bear, conscious 
of aiming to do a duty just now required by the 
exigencies of the times. 

The audience to whom the following lectures 
were delivered will see that, as published, they 
are greatly extended. The explanation is that 


8 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, 


no one of them, as written for the occasion, was 
fully delivered, for reasons which need not here 
be given. This was the less regretted, by the 
author at least, because in the intention of the 
Founder they were to be prepared for the press 
as well as for the lecture-room ; and inasmuch as 
they were designed for others more exposed to 
the danger of imbibing moral poison than the 
well-instructed students, whose especial benefit 
was first consulted, simplicity of style, condensa- 
tion, and suggestiveness were the points aimed 
at by the writer. 

Because the fund invested for this lectureship 
unfortunately has been ridden on a rail until ex- 
hausted, that was not considered a valid reason 
for withholding from the Church work to which 
she had appointed him, since it is the way of 
Providence to make feeble means reach impor- 
tant ends. Though sensible of defects which may 
need the forbearance of his brethren, he has no 
apology to make. If the lectures are good, they 
need none; if bad, they deserve none; and so he 
commits them to the Lord and his Church, espe- 
cially that part of it in which he began his minis- 
try, and in which he has been permitted to serve 
continuously for a period as long as that which 
the Israelites spent in the wilderness. 


pePPOROPERTY OF Aeeg 
Y PRINCETON — 
bEC, NOV 1860 


\ THEOLOGICAL, 
pp SEMINKS Lie 


GAR OG Io 


TRUTH IN GENERAL, REVEALED TRUTH 
IN PARTICULAR. 


THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT. 


Human knowledge defective—Life—Inadequate definitions—Some of 
our scientists materialists—‘‘ The breath of lives’ —The human soul 
an entity—Its necessities—What is Truth ?—Definition—Divisions— 
Revealed Truth a science—Reason defined—Difference between it and 
Reasoning—Its processes: @ priori, 2 posteriori— Dishonesty of argu- 
ment—Dr. Johnson—Wilberforce—Rousseau, and remarkable quota- 
tions from him—What is Infidelity ?—Our sacred volume—The @ grtori 
process upon a proposition, in ten particulars—The same upon 
another, in five particulars—To maintain the part of a consistent liar 
most difficult—Brief accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John— 
Remarkable characteristics of the Gospels—The Hero of their story— 
His wonderful character and career—Its invention impossible—The 
Christian religion original in plan, doctrine, and adaptation—The 
a priori argument of infidelity a conspicuous failure—Correctly con- 
ducted, this process rolls up an overwhelming argument in favor of 
Revealed Truth. 


TuE American Centennial Exposition of 1876, 
to which all the nations of the earth largely 
contributed in honor of our country, naturally 

enough dazed the mind of every beholder, awak- 


IO VEDDER LECTURES. 


ened his admiration, and prompted his pride on 
account of the marvellous capabilities of man. 
But the abiding impression, after all, is this. In- 
vestigation and effort, on all subjects inviting 
them, steadily prove that human knowledge, at 
most, is very defective, and human power, at best, 
very limited. The first is imported from the world 
without by means of the five senses, all liable to 
deception and derangement; the second is re- 
strained by inexorable laws, in obedience to which 
it must work out its own small achievements. 
Take, for example, the plainest things. What 
are the natures, how the combinations, and 
whence the energy of those few well-known ele- 
ments that compose the universe ?- What is the 
nature, why the qualities, and how the operation 
of light? What the nature of that supposable 
imponderable substance existing between the at- 
mospheres of planets, stars, and suns? By what 
imaginable process could they have been formed? 
What is the cause of action and counteraction be- 
tween those forces that keep whirling masses of 
matter of various sizes and densities in their al- 
lotted circuits with such wonderful exactitude? 
Nay, let us come down to our own little planet, 
with easier questions. Our philosophers show 
us the proximate causes of rain, dew, frost, hail, 
snow, and explain the occurrences of atmospheric 
changes, of thunder and storm. These are phe- 
nomena at our very feet, or suspended just above 
our heads; but when explanation ventures but a 
little way back in the line of causation, how very 
soon does it need itself to be explained? How 


REVEALED TRUTH. EL 


soon in the effort does it stammer and stop? As 
clear light becomes obscure when it enters the 
bosom of the ocean, growing fainter and fainter in 
its downward progress, until lost in the darkness 
of the deep, so in their explanations, from the first 
immediate visible to the first mediate invisible, 
and so on to the next more deeply hidden cause, 
at only one or two removes, they come to an abyss 
where the wit of man is plunged in total dark- 
ness. Yet, regardless of this, some sturdy sci- 
entists of our day imply in their wastefully 
worded utterances that, by right of discovery, as 
the successful explorers of nature, they may as- 
sume to regulate the faith of mankind at the ex- 
pense of what has long been accepted as revealed 
truth; and in many instances at the expense of 
rejecting God himself. This fact is not new in 
the world—only the method of it. 

Pror. HAECKEL, a materialist, says (“ History 
of Greation, vol: il; pa’.123)2) “We need: “not 
trouble ourselves at all about the attacks of theo- 
logians and other unscientific men, who really 
know nothing whatever of nature.” But, with 
great deference, we may be allowed to ask: What 
now constitutes the superiority of qualification 
that justifies this assumed position? Surely it 
must be an acquired ability to reach and unfold 
the mysteries of nature, which have hitherto bid 
defiance to all powers of human penetration. Let 
us see. Some things which are most familiar to 
us are confessedly at the farthest remove beyond 
our powers of penetration. Such, for example, is 
the principle of life. Who can tell us what it is? 


12 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Our scientists, be sure ; upon whose opinions, in 
more important matters, they ask us, “ who really 
know nothing whatever of nature,” to rely. 

CUVIER, in his “Animal Kingdom,” tells us that 
“Life ts that condition of being in which the form ts 
more essential than the matter.’ No doubt; but 
this is stating simply the difference between the 
organic and the inorganic, of which we need no 
information. 

ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLFE, in his “History of 
the Sciences,” says: “Life is the transformation of 
physical or chemical motion into plastic or nervous mo- 
tion.” No doubt; but that is stating an effect, not 
the cause of it. 

HERBERT SPENCER, in his “ Principles of Psy- 
chology,” says: ‘ Life ts the continuous adjustment 
of internal relations to external relations.’ No 
doubt; but this is informing us of no information. 

And again, in his “ Biology,” he says: “Life ds 
the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both 
simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with 
external co-existences and sequences.” But to say 
that life is a “ combination of changes’ is to utter an 
evident absurdity. 

Dr. PARIS, after others, says: “Life ts the to- 
tality of those functions that resist death.’ No 
doubt; but this is saying a solemn nothing in 
dignified formality of speech. 

Dr. BUCHNER, equally lucid, says: “Life zs a 
peculiar and most complicate form of mechanical ac- 
tion, in which the usual mechanical laws act under the 
most unusual and most varied conditions, and in 
which the final results are separated from the origt- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 13 


nal causes by such a number of intermediate links that 
their connection ts not easily established.” No doubt, 
perhaps, if we can get at the meaning of this cum- 
brous verbiage, which seems to be a definition by 
a declaration of ignorance of the thing defined. 

PROF. CarL VocT helps us to understand the 
meaning of these learned utterances by saying, 
scientifically, in regard to the highest manifesta- 
tions of life, that “ thought stands in the same rela- 
tion to the brain as the bile to the liver or the urine 
to the kidneys.” 

Such is the profound babble of those who ac- 
cuse us of really knowing nothing whatever of na- 
ture. How happy they must feel in this self-com- 
placency! Ourmodern scientists, such as these, are 
the grossest materialists imaginable, and although 
ambitious of being esteemed men of profound 
erudition, are only, by their own showing, men of 
uncommon sense. They are ever talking about 
“vital force,” but we have the authority of PROF. 
VocT himself for affirming that this talk means 
nothing but the keeping up of appearances. He 
says: “The appeal to a vital force is merely a 
periphrasis for ignorance. It constitutes one of 
those back doors, of which there so many in sci- 
ence.” But unfortunately this “ back door’ is the 
very one most in use when these learned authors 
are pushed upon such questions as that of life, 
and of other recondite matters which they assume 
to solve in such marvellous definitions as they 
have given. Nor can they tell us any more about 
where life is than what it is. To help their wild 


14 VEDDER LECTURES. 


imaginations* they learnedly appeal to the micro- 
scope, and talk about the discovery of protoplasm, 
which is “germinal matter,” “a corpuscule of 
mucus without component parts,” and is alike the 
basis of life in the Monera, which are “ primeval 
creatures of the simplest kind conceivable, pro- 
duced by spontaneous generation,” according to 
Pror. HAECKEL (“History of Creation,” vol. 11, 
p. 41), and in Man as well, thence developed, ac- 
cording to Darwin’s “ Theory of Descent.” But 
the Bible informs us that “the life is in the blood,” 
and the microscope yields us evidence as con- 
clusive, at least, as that claimed for its existence 
inabitof mucus. Upon such imbecility, clothed 
with the garments of learning, do these ingenious 
gentlemen venture to impose upon the common- 
sense of mankind. 

The truth is, life, like many other things, eludes 
all definition. We only know that it is an organ- 
izing principle, of which there are three forms, dif- 
fering in manifestation. These forms are vegeta- 
ble life, known by growth; animal life, known by 
locomotion; and spiritual life, known by rational- 
ity, consciousness, and moral feeling. We know of 
no other form except a combination of these in 


* Prof. Huxley says in his speech at Nashville, “I know it is 
thought very often that men of science are in the habit of draw- 
ing largely from their imaginations, but it is really not so.” We 
beg pardon for differing with him on this point, and in proof of 
our being right we point to Prof. Haeckel’s ‘‘ Spontaneous Gen- 
eration,” as we might in many instances to Darwin, Spencer, and 
Huxley himself in his absurdity about ‘‘Bathybius,” which he 
has now given up as too heavy a draught upon his own imagina- 
tion. ; 


REVEALED TRUTH. 15 


human nature. Revealed truth teaches us, in op- 
position to the theories of materialists, that God 
“formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and 
man became a living soul.” But the original is 
in the plural—“ THE BREATH OF LIVES.” It is 
certainly remarkable that this descriptive lan- 
guage should be made to indicate plurality in the 
vital principle imparted. God spirited man with 
the spirit of lives. Besure this may be said to be 
simply a form of speech, meant only to intensify 
expression, just as God speaks of himself in the 
plural, “\et us make man,” indicating nothing 
more than the szmgular of dignity; but it is not 
proven, and is not true, for the reason that it isa 
pure assumption. God never stood in need of 
expressing the dignity of his nature in this way. 
It was quite too early, when Moses wrote, for the 
substitution of one number of a pronoun for 
another in descriptive language; and ever after 
such an expedient was contrary to the usage of 
the Hebrew tongue. This language is not alle- 
gorically figurative, but historically literal. As 
the author wrote not likea rhetorician, nor like 
a philosopher, nor yet like a physiologist, he 
nevertheless stated a fact that our physiology ac- 
cepts and teaches, namely, that in man is found this 
very trinity of lives—the vegetable, distinguished 
by growth; the animal, by locomotion; the spi- 
ritual, by rationality and consciousness. Now 
the method of imparting this compound life, and 
the terms descriptive of it, are highly suggestive 
as to that thing we call Auman nature. Breath is 


16 VEDDER LECTURES. 


a term used in the Scriptures sometimes to mean 
spirit ; and in-breathing is another to denote the 
act of imparting spirit. As it would be absurd to 
suppose that God breathed oxygen out of himself 
to vitalize the first human form, we are clearly 
compelled to interpret the words descriptive of 
this culminating creative act as necessarily mean- 
ing that something more than mere life went out 
from God’s creative power into this noblest form, 
capacitated to receive and retain the “ likeness” 
of himself, which for obvious reasons no fleshly 
form nor any other could. Now, since God is 
defined to be a spirit, this something more must 
have been a spirit also, possessed of certain simi- 
larities necessary to constitute an “image;” and 
for the additional reason that this something more 
was not imparted to any other of living creatures, 
many varieties of which breathed the breath of 
life defore Adam did, and as he did. Supposing it 
to have been the intent of Moses to teach the 
creation of a spiritual entity as the great distin- 
guishing fact of the superiority of human nature 
over the brutal, can we think of any form of words 
that could more forcibly and so concisely express 
it? Or supposing he only meant to say that man 
-“ became a living being,” can we see the necessity 
or the propriety of verbal surplusage in the state- 
ment of a fact already indicated by the animal 
creation, every one of which had “become a liv- 
ing being” before him? Man, be sure, is an anl- 
mal: but he issomething more. Hence the phrase 
“became a living soul”—to be distinctively 
descriptive, must mean a spiritual entity apart 


REVEALED TRUTH. _ 17 


from mere life and its functions. He was made in 
the image of his glorious Author, spiritual, intelli- 
gent, capable of immortality ; and for the accom- 
modation of a being so nobly formed, his bodily 
structure was “ made upright,” and vitalized by 
“the breath of lives.” 

It is inaccordance with human experience that 
man’s necessities are great in proportion to this 
complexity of his nature, and the enlargement of 
the sphere of his possible attainment. By his ma- 
terial organization there is necessity that he must 
eat, drink, sleep, and put forth such activity as is 
prompted by the instincts of animal life, under the 
penalty of inevitable decay. His spiritual life, in 
like manner, demands an aliment and an activity 
required by its necessities, under the penalty of 
ill-being for the entire length of the soul’s duration. 
And as the Author of his existence has bountifully 
provided for its corporeal part, possessed in com- 
mon with the lower creation, we cannot avoid the 
conclusion that he has as bountifully arranged for 
the wants of its spiritual part, which the lower 
creation does not possess in common with him. 
By an arrangement upon the principle of adapta- 
tion, everywhere seen in creation as the evidence 
of contriving benevolence, the human spirit can 
only grow into the capabilities of mental and 
moral strength, and up to its attainable excellence 
of faculty and force; for where there is failure in 
this growth, ignorance becomes the source of 
mental degradation, and sin the mother of woe— 
both uniting to display the horrors of savagism, 
not only as seen in the dark corners of the earth, 


18 VEDDER LECTURES. 


but as unfolded by the daily prints of our own 
boasted civilization. How preposterous, then, is 
the assumption of our materialistic scientists, that 
man, having all requisite resources within himself, 
no more needs a revelation from God than the 
beasts of forest and field! 

If it be our happiness to know what to select as 
proper food for the health and growth of the body, 
no less is it our unspeakable advantage to know 
what aliment is needed for the welfare of the soul. 
This is TRUTH. Truth, suited to the spiritual ap- 
petite of the soul, is the only thing adapted to its 
nature; the only thing that will secure its health 
and promote its growth in whatever constitutes 
its happiness. As the body of a man thrives by 
what it feeds upon, or sickens and dies by poisoned 
food, so the soul grows and thrives by the life- 
keeping power of truth, or pines and perishes by 
the poison of error. What the act of eating is to 
the body, the act of believing is to the soul; as the 
thing eaten, and not the act of eating, is that which 
supports the life of the body or kills it, so the thing 
believed, and not the act of believing, is the pro- 
curing cause of health or disease to the soul; and 
as the nutriment of the one is taken up by its ten 
thousand absorbents and carried to all parts for 
strength and repair, so the food of the other, 
taken up by the powers of thought, reason, and 
judgment, is worked over and over, and made 
one with itself by digestion and transfusion 
throughout its whole spiritual being. Nothing 
can be plainer than this. 

But what is TRUTH? Pilate’s question will bear 


REVEALED TRUTH. 19 


repeating, yet we cannot afford to be as thought- 
less as he in propounding it. The word is well 
known to be Saxon, derived from froth or trust, 
and indicates that which is trustworthy, or the 
matter of trust, apart from the act of it. TRUTH, 
strictly speaking, means the reality of facts and 
things. Facts are incidents which come to pass ; 
things are objects in existence; though these 
terms are often loosely used as interchangeable. 
Their reality covers their substance, natures, re- 
lations, and adjustments in the constitution of the 
universe. But inasmuch as truth includes both 
the state and the statement of facts and things, our 
definition needs some enlargement ; and therefore 
we say that ¢ruth ws the agreement of thought and 
speech with the reality of facts and things. False- 
hood, on the other hand, is disagreement in these 
particulars, indicating the errors of mind and heart 
in those who deceive and are deceived. The con- 
dition of both will be good or bad, according to 
choice. As the cravings of bodily hunger will 
make the appetite seize, in extremity, upon nox- 
ious if unable to get nutritious food, so the craving 
soul, if it do not get truth, will devour error regard- 
less of results—the only difference being this un- 
happy one, that the respective instincts of body 
and soul are not equally reliable for right selec- 
tion. The reason is familiar to those upon whom 
our materialistic scientists bestow their impotent 
contempt, and accounts for the ill condition of the 
human race. This much, however, may be said: 
There is a natural congeniality between the mind 
and truth, and if the intellect be allowed fair play 


20 VEDDER LECTURES. 


by the passions, what is once accepted ‘by good 
evidence for fact cannot afterwards be taken for 
fiction ; yet it is our unhappy experience that pas- 
sion has got the reins, and rides the reason with 
whip and spur. Truth, as an abstract subject of 
thought, is one and indivisible; but for the con- 
venience of study is presented in subdivisions, 
exemplified by the species of a genus, and accord- 
ingly we specify: 

I, PHYSICAL TRUTH, sometimes called odjective, 
embracing facts and things in nature recognized 
by the senses, such as are grouped in Geography, 
Chemistry, Physiology, and Medical Science. 

2. METAPHYSICAL TRUTH, not cognizable by the 
senses, but embracing the facts and things of mind, 
is known by the terms of Psychology and Mental 
Philosophy. 

3. MorAL TRUTH, embracing the facts and 
things of our moral in distinction from our 
mental nature, includes the sciences of Moral 
Philosophy, Political Economy, Law, and Govern- 
ment. 

4. LOGICAL TRUTH relates to facts and thing's 
of faith and conduct made clear by the reasoning 
faculty for the guidance of both. Its method is 
the Art of Persuasion. 

5. MATHEMATICAL TRUTH embraces the facts 
and things discoverable by numbers, measure- 
ments, and quantities, and refers to Arithmetic, 
Algebra, Trigonometry, and cognate sciences em- 
ploying its means of calculation. 

6. HISTORICAL TRUTH, comprises the facts and 
things of the past too remote for our personal ob- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 21 


servation, and includes Narrative, Biography, and 
Chronology. 

7. REVEALED TRUTH embodies facts, things, 
relations, doctrines, and duties not discoverable 
by human reason or research, but brought within 
our knowledge by supernatural agency. All this 
is contained in the HOLY BIBLE. 

Revealed truth, relating to all the future of eter- 
nity no less than to the whole period of time, is, 
on that account, more important to the welfare of 
man than the whole encyclopzdia of knowledges 
as above indicated, because these respect the in- 
terests of man throughout time, while this respects 
his highest interest through eternity, to which 
there is no outlet. Upon each of these species of. 
truth every one may know more or lessas he likes ; 
but the more he knows, and the better he knows 
it, the greater will be his intellectual grasp and 
power of retention. These seven divisions, each 
having its own peculiar principles and doctrines, 
make up the general subject of Truth; and as the 
seven colors are combined in the effulgence of 
white light, so these are united in the great prin- 
ciple of mental and moral illumination, which irra- 
diates, expands, and qualifies the mind for its 
highest dignity in the flesh; and, out of the flesh, 
for approximation toward the glorious Source of 
all things, “in whom it lives and moves and has 
its being.” I mention these divisions of truth 
mainly for the sake of prominence to the remark- 
able fact that, while each of them has its own pe- 
culiar set of proofs to enforce the consent of the 
mind, none of them has met with opposition, ex- 


22 VEDDER LECTURES. 


cept the one last named, whose claims are the 
most powerful upon the attention and confidence 
of allmen. The great wonder prominent among 
mental and moral phenomena is resistance to these 
claims by men whose scientific attainments should 
seemingly forbid; while multitudes of equally 
sound minds, but of less pretentions, yield it the 
homage of head and heart. The only conceivable 
explanation is that in the former cases mind and 
heart have not been put to the same school. Men 
of cultured intellect, but, as themselves have 
shown, of uncultured moral nature, have claimed 
the right of rebellion against it, on the score of 
possessing an all-sufficient reason, set up by them- 
selves as the court of last resort on all questions 
fairly coming within the province of revealed 
truth for decision. 

In the outset of remonstrance this much is 
freely granted them: Reason is the judge of what 
is reasonable. I donot-mean the particular rea- 
son of any one man or setof men, but the general, 
the universal reason of mankind, whose intuitions 
and perceptions are common to the race, and 
mainly uniform. These, unbiassed by individual 
agencies or otherwise, are always trustworthy ; 
and because of their omnipresence in every gen- 
eration, there is no such thing as a universal error. 
Upon them we can rely to almost any extent for 
ability to discriminate between the true and the 
false, the right and the wrong in the details of 
duty. Of what conceivable use is the faculty of 
reason above brutal instinct, if she cannot arrive 
at the certainty of substantial truth? If the latter 


REVEALED TRUTH. 23 


insures good results to brutality, shall not the 
former insure superior results to humanity? To 
this end was reason made superior to instinct, 
and implanted in the soul of man, the glory of his 
being. Yet is reason lame and blind and dumb 
as to any power adequate to discovery or decision 
upon those great subjects that come within the 
scope of revealed truth. I hope this will be made 
clear in appearance, as it is incontrovertible in 
fact. 

The distinction between the modes of operation 
which reason takes for the discovery of truth must 
be clearly pointed out, since her processes vary 
according to the kinds of subject upon which she 
labors. My meaning is that reason, in the nature 
of things, cannot work out moral and mathemati- 
cal questions by the same method. We all know 
that. We all see there is as great a difference be- 
tween moral and mathematical qualities of truth 
as there is between the sciences of ethics and quan- 
tity. To meet this, reason has two hands to work 
with, and two ways of working, and is equally re- 
liable for good results by both operations. Not 
even a tyro need be told that algebraic expres- 
sions are not adapted to expound moral truth, nor 
moral reasoning competent to prove a theorem; 
yet the legitimate proof of a proposition within the 
sphere of moral truth is just as sure for a certainty 
-as the proof of any proposition within the sphere 
of mathematical truth. We need to nail this fact 
in the mind, if we would avoid many absurd mis- 
takes that others have made. 

REASON is the power of universal and necessary 


24 VEDDER LECTURES. 


conviction, whose appeal is always to her own 
intuitions, looking into truths above sense, and that 
have their evidence in themselves. REASONING is 
the working of contemplation upon facts and pro- 
positions submitted as coming within the sphere 
of this power, from which there is no appeal. 
Between them we must distinguish, however, as 
accurately as between a laborer and his work. 
If the laborer attempt that which is above or 
beyond his natural force, his work will be an abor- 
tion. So with reason: she is powerful within her 
own limited sphere, but powerless beyond it. As 
I have said, she has two methods of procedure 
in the execution of her work. The first, techni- 
cally called the 4 priorz process, creates probabili- 
ties. The second, technically called the @ posterzort 
process, begets degrees of conviction.* When 


* For the sake of those not familiar with the formative terms of 
logic, definitions are here given. By the @ priori reason is meant 
the reason as it starts upon its work from perceptions and intui- 
tions ingrained within itself, and necessary to itself. It must 
perceive, ¢.g., that a whole is greater than its part. The distinc- 
tion between truth and falsehood is, by necessity, intuitively seen. 
No argument is necessary to establish these and similar first 
truths. Reasoning & priori means the process by which reason 
works out an argument from its own resources. It lays down, 
e.g., one of its own self-evident intuitions, and deduces conse- 
quences from it. Its argument is from cause to effect. It thus 
diverges from a starting-point within itself in lines of connected 
thought to reach a conclusion. 

By the @ posteriori reason is meant the reason as it starts upon 
its work from facts and things presenting themselves outside of 
itself. It begins with a view of them and the principles by which 
their nature and relations are determined, converging from facts 
and things its lines of thought to a final point or conclusion. 
Reasoning @ posteriori means the process by which reason works 


REVEALED TRUTH. 25 


beth unite upon a verdict on any matter fairly 
coming within the province of her court, reason 
pronounces it with a certainty morally felt to be 
sure as her own existence. But this union is nec- 
essary to such a degree of confidence. It must 
not be forgotten that each method has its own 
peculiar advantages, and a union of them all is 
necessary to establish an absolute confidence in 
what is held to be truth. When one mind attempts 
to produce conviction in another, a world-wide 
experience proves that @ przorz reasoning depends 
for its success more upon the state of the mind 
addressed than upon the argument addressing it ; 
or if that mind rests upon this process alone for 
certainty to itself, it will most likely be deceived, 
because the power of its vision may be weakened 
or obscured by the influence of passion. It is 
otherwise with an 2 posteriori, argument, which does 
not so depend, but with its inductions increases 
light from without at every step. In the first in- 
stance the mind should believe, but may refuse, the 
power of intuition being subject to adverse in- 
fluence; in the second, the mind must believe, and 
cannot refuse, because induction is subject to no 
such drawback. In the first instance the progress 
is slow from probability to probability until an 
accumulation of them shall cover all incidental 
out an argument from the necessary connection of facts and 
events with their formative principles. It inducts consequences 
from premises outside of itself, and argues from effect to cause. 
“‘An individual may fall under suspicion of murder for two rea- 
sons: he may have coveted the deceased’s property, or he may 


be found with it in his possession ; the former is an @ priori, the 
latter an @ posterior? argument against him,” 


26 VEDDER LECTURES. 


questions, leaving no room for doubt; yet, at the 
same time, there is some chance at every point of 
advance for the income of feelings unfavorable to 
fairness of judgment ; in the second, an argument 
starting with that which admits of no doubt, goes 
on with increase of power. When both processes 
are expended upon a subject, the result is compul- 
sion right up to a sure conclusion, satisfactory 
both to reason and conscience. Now, should any- 
thing claiming to come from God be found to 
offend the intuition of an unprejudiced reason, or | 
violate the decisions of an intelligent conscience, 
it ought at once to be rejected as inconsistent with 
our mental and moral nature, and set aside as an 
imposition. But while it is true that the unbiassed 
intuition of reason and the impressions of a clear- 
sighted conscience are perfectly reliable, and noth- 
ing in revealed truth can contradict them, there 
must be a union of processes as above indicated ; 
for the 4 priori, perfectly sure so far as it goes, by 
itself, can take us but a little way, because it is 
abstract reasoning, and on that account needs the 
auxiliary & postertorz, which is conjunct. 

I have purposely lingered around this point 
because I wish it to be clearly understood, that 
the dishonesty of INFIDELITY may stand out like 
the block letters upon a sign I once saw over 
a low door of a theatre, informing the public of 
“ The Way to the Pit.” Whenever its adherents 
have attempted to argue at all, avoiding that upon 
which Christians lay the greatest argumenta- 
tive weight, they have generally confined their 
efforts to the narrow limits of the 4 przorz process, 


REVEALED TRUTH. 27 


like their great champions Voltaire and Hume, 
who, for reasons above given, while deceiving 
were deceived. They tell us it would be super- 
fluous trouble to wade through the mass of our 
proffered @ posterior? proof, and on this account: 
The Scriptures, say they, contain so many prodi- 
gies of witchcraft and wonders by invisible per- 
sonal agencies, good and bad; so many interpo- 
sitions among the affairs of men by angels and 
devils fighting for the mastery; so many vices 
adhering to the heroes of piety, while scrupulous- 
ly moral men, like the Pharisees, are mercilessly 
denounced for hypocrisy; so many unnatural 
stories, like those of Jonah and Balaam; so many 
absurd doctrines, like that of the resurrection, it 
is simply an act of wisdom, at the dictate of intui- 
tive reason, to close the Bible, since it carries 
with it the materials of its own refutation; and 
to reject the Christian religion, which was built 
upon the accredited facts and faithfulness of the 
Mosaic record, now torn to pieces by the remorse- 
less logic of geological science. To all this, and 
more of the same sort of flippancy, we are fre- 
quently treated by unbelievers of every kind, but 
it is irrelevant. We regard candor in a critic of 
the first and last qualification to entitle his objec- 
tions to respect. It is conceded on all hands 
that no man can urge objections against the doc- 
trines of others which lie with equal weight 
against his own; and for this reason the assertions 
of the deist respecting the absurdities of the 
Bible are not worthy of any other reply than 
this. Your doctrine is that nature fully demon- 


28 VEDDER LECTURES. 


strates the benevolence of God, and natural re- 
ligion, revealed in the book of nature, supersedes 
the Bible and the religion founded upon it as well. 
But there are similar difficulties in the book of 
nature, lying across the path of the deist’s doc- 
trine. Destructive calamities constantly occurring 
by means of volcanoes, earthquakes, the wars of 
the elements, inundations, the inequalities of the 
earth’s surface and climate, the hard terms of 
subsistence imposed upon mankind, rendered still 
more afflictive by droughts and frequent famines, 
etc., prove, upon your own principles, that both 
the book and the religion of which you boast are 
equally worthless. His reply that these things, 
called natural evils, are, upon the whole, no evils 
at all, because nitre, sulphur, and carbon are thus 
driven all over the face of the earth, without 
which animal and vegetable life would perish, is 
an argument in favor of the cause he seeks to 
subvert ; for, by the same judgment, he ought to 
perceive that the extraordinary claims of the 
Bible and its religion could never be otherwise 
adequately proved than by those extraordinary 
means with which he finds fault. Marvellous 
claims require marvellous proof. Why, is it not 
reasonable, and a proof of divine wisdom, that the 
God of natural truth should make nature afford 
overwhelming evidence that he is also the God 
of supernatural truth, proving the Scriptures to 
be heavenly documents for the instruction of 
men as to their moral duties and ultimate des- 
tiny? Balaam’s ass, for example, speaking with 
an articulate voice for a given purpose, involves 


REVEALED TRUTH. 29 


no greater absurdity than the assertion that the 
most awful engines of death and destruction 
should be regarded as appropriate means, in the 
hands of divine benevolence, for preserving life 
and augmenting human happiness the world over. 
Thus we dispose of a crowd of small objections 
that largely make up the whole stock of the in- 
fidel’s a priorc argument. 

Dr. Johnson on a certain occasion well observed 
that “no honest man could be a deist; for no man 
could be so after a fair examination of the proofs 
of Christianity.” On being reminded of Hume 
by his auditor, “ No, sir,” said he; “ Hume owned 
to a clergyman in the bishopric of Durham that 
he had never read the New Testament with at- 
tention.” This no doubt is the case with them all. 

“Tt is curious,” says Wilberforce (‘“ Practical 
View”), “to read the accounts which infidels give 
of themselves, the rather as they accord so exactly 
with the results of our own observation. We find 
that they once, perhaps, gave a sort of implicit 
hereditary assent to the truth of Christianity, and 
were what by a mischievous perversion of lan- 
guage the world denominates Jdelievers. How 
were they, then, awakened from their sleep of ig- 
norance? At what moment did the light of truth 
beam in upon them and dissipate the darkness in 
which they had been involved? The period of 
their infidelity is marked by no such determinate 
boundary. Reason and thought and inquiry had 
little or nothing to do with it. Having lived for 
many years careless and irreligious lives, and 
associated with companions equally careless and 


30 VEDDER LECTURES. 


irreligious, not by force of study and reflection, 
but rather by the lapse of time, they at length 
attained to their infidel maturity. It is worthy of 
remark that when any are reclaimed from infi- 
delity, it is generally by a process much more 
rational than that which has here been described. 
They examine, they consider, and at length yield 
their assent to Christianity on what they deem 
sufficient grounds.” 

While this is true of many who have escaped 
out of the deadly snare, it is quite otherwise with 
the majority, whose moral nature is so debased, 
by their own showing, that even their reason, 
perversely swayed by likes and dislikes, has no 
chance to work fairly under the circumstances. 
In proof of this I shall produce the testimony of 
a great man among them, who was also an ex- 
ample of moral corruption prevailing and presid- 
ing over the @ grzort judgment of his own mind. 
JEAN JACQUES Rousseau still lives upon the roll 
of literary fame, whose name was of great bril- 
liancy in its zenith, whose character was of great 
infamy at the same time, and whose opportunities 
of judging were equal to his powers of delinea- 
tion. His well-known vigorous paragraphs, which 
I quote, should never be forgotten. He says: 


‘‘T have consulted our philosophers, I have perused their 
books, I have examined their several opinions; I have found 
them all proud, positive, and dogmatizing in their skepticism, 
knowing everything, proving nothing, and ridiculing one an- 
other—and this is the only point in which they concur, and in 
which they are right. Daring, when they attack, they defend 
themselves with vigor. If you consider their arguments, they 
have none but for destruction ; if you count their number, each 


i 
4 2 , 
Cee eC eS 


Dy eee ie eat, 
pein See ny jae kt tire tabi 


REVEALED TRUTH. ae 


one is reduced to himself; they never unite but to dispute ; to 
listen to them was not to relieve my doubts. I conceive that 
the insufficiency of the human understanding was the first cause 
of the prodigious diversity of sentiment, and that pride was the 
second. If our philosophers were able to discover truth, which 
of them would interest himself about it? Each of them knows 
that his system is no better established than the others, but he 
supports it because it is his own ; there is not one among them 
who, coming to distinguish truth from falsehood, would not 
prefer his own error to the truth that is discovered by another. 
Where is the philosopher who, for his own glory, would not will- 
ingly deceive the whole human race? Where is he who, in the 
secret of his heart, proposes any other object than his own dis- 
tinction, provided he can best raise himself above the common- 
alty ?—provided he can eclipse his competitors, he has reached 
the summit of his ambition. The great thing for him is to think 
differently from other people. Among believers he is an atheist ; 
among atheists, a believer.” 

“Shun, shun them,” he continues, ‘‘those who, under the 
pretence of explaining nature, sow in the hearts of men the most 
dispiriting doctrines, whose scepticism is far more affirmative 
and dogmatical than the most decided tone of their adversaries. 
Under the pretence of being themselves the only people enlight- 
ened, they impiously subject us to their magisterial decisions, 
and would fain palm upon us, for the true cause of things, the 
unintelligible systems they have erected in their own heads; 
whilst they overturn, destroy, and trample under foot all that 
man reveres: snatch from the afflicted the only comfort left 
them in their misery: from the rich and great the only curb 
that can restrain their passions: tear from the heart all remorse 
of vice, all hope of virtue, and still boast themselves the bene- 
factors of mankind. ‘ Truth,’ they say, ‘is never hurtful to man.’ 
I believe that, as well as they; and the same, in my opinion, is 
a proof that what they teach is not the truth.”—Gregory’s Letters. 


This is a picture dark and dismal, but true to the 
life at the time it was drawn. ROUSSEAU spoke 
from bitter experience. Fatally misled as he was, 
he turned “ State’s evidence,” and proved himself 
able and willing to expose the wickedness of 


32 VEDDER LECTURES. 


others, not concealing his own. We have his own 
word for it, that he was a thief, liar, and profligate, 
upon an execrable principle he was not ashamed 
to avow. “I have only to consult myself concern- 
ing what I do. All that I fee/to be right, is right. 
Whatever I feel to be wrong, is wrong. All the 
morality of our actions lies in the judgment we 
ourselves form of them.’”’ He attained a high 
eminence in authorship. His works were pub- 
lished in no less than twenty volumes, the best 
edition of 1824, with the notes of a talented editor. 
Perhaps no writer of his school has ever gained 
an influence so incisive, resulting from the elo- 
quence, fervency, and fascination of style with 
which he defended his opinions. Preceded by 
Herbert, Hobbs, Woolston, and others of less 
note, cotemporary with Hume and Voltaire, all of 
whose works he had read, his opinion of them is 
competent and commanding, because he was en- 
listed in the same service and fought for the same 
object. His were the palmiest days of infidelity, 
and its defenders, whose mental acuteness no fair- 
minded man has ever disputed, whose moral sen- 
timents no right-minded man has ever approved, 
had gained an influence like himself, more or less 
extensive ; yet, in the bitterness of disappointment 
and disgust, he sets them forth in a strong light 
as the worst enemies of mankind. We are entitled 
to the testimony of one who was in sympathy 
with them, yet displeased by their arrogant im- 
becility which they sought to palm off upon the 
world as intellectual strength and unanswerable 
argument; and therefore, as a competent limner, 


REVEALED TRUTH. 33 


he painted them in fiery paragraphs, with a pencil 
dipped in carmine. To delineate the conflict that 
often distracts the heads and hearts of such men 
as ROUSSEAU in their better moments, I shall let 
him speak for himself again, in another quotation, 
singularly beautiful in thought and expression. 
He says: 


‘“‘T will confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures 
strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its 
influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, 
with all their pomp and diction ; how mean, how contemptible 
are they compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a 
book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the 
work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose 
history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find 
that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast, or ambitious sectary ? 
What sweetness, what purity in his manners! What an affecting 
gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimityin his maxims! 
What profound wisdom in his discourse! What presence of 
mind in his replies ! How great the command over his passions! 
Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and 
so die, without weakness and without ostentation ? When Plato 
described his imaginary good man, with all the shame of guilt, 
yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he described the char- 
acter of Jesus Christ ; the resemblance was so striking, that all 
the Christian fathers perceived it. 

‘“‘ What prepossessions, what blindness must it be to compare 
(Socrates) the son of Sopronicus to (Jesus) the son of Mary! 
What an infinite disproportion between them! Socrates, dying 
without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the 
last ; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, 
it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wis- 
dom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it 
is said, the theory of morals; others, however, had before put 
them in practice; he had only to say, therefore, what they had 
done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. But where 
could Jesus learn, among his competitors, that pure and sublime 
morality, of which he only has given us both precept and exam- 
ple? Thedeath of Socrates, peacefully philosophizing with his 


34 VEDDER LECTURES. 


friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; 
that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, 
insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible 
that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, 
blessed the weeping executioner who administered it ; but Je- 
sus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merci- 
less tormentors. Yes! if the life and death of Socrates were 
those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. 
Shall we suppose the evangelistic history a mere fiction? In 
deed, my friend, it bears not the mark of fiction; on the con- 
trary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, 
is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposi- 
tion, in fact, only shifts the difficulty, without obviating it ; it is 
more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to 
write such a history, than that one should furnish the subject of 
it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and 
strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks 
of whose truths are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor 
would be a more astonishing character than the hero.” 


And yet, in proof of what I have said as to 
moral obliquity counteracting the reason of these 
infatuated men, the author of this contrast sub- 
joined to it the declaration: “I cannot believe 
the Gospel!” Alas, poor Rousseau, to what a 
sad degree of moral distraction did the dark 
spirit of infidelity lead thee! 

But what is Infidelity? It is dzsbelief of re- 
vealed truth, accompanied with mzsbelief as to 
some form of error. The two necessarily go to- 
gether, and there is no choice in the matter; for 
every man must believe something. If he will not 
feed upon truth, he must devour error and be- 
come the victim of his own delusion. Now the 
absurdity of infidelity, as thus popularly under- 
stood, glaringly appears in the fact that it is a 


— _™ 4 ‘ pee, pee 
ee 2 er ef. hor 


ae « * 


Lo” lL eee ee ee 


{ 


—_ i 


REVEALED TRUTH. 35 


moral insurrection of the heart against the reason, 
in which strong dislike blinds and perverts it, as 
in the case of RoussEAU. Men, under its sway, 
treat revealed truth as they treat no other form 
of truth—using arguments against it of which they 
would be utterly ashamed in other connections. 

The proposition, for example, that the world 
moves round the sun, is sustained by adequate 
evidence, and is accepted as an astronomical 
truth, notwithstanding appearances to the con- 
trary. 

The proposition that Cesar overran Gaul and 
made it part of the Roman empire, is a historical 
truth laid down in his Commentaries, and nobody 
calls it in question. 

The proposition that the square of the hypo- 
thenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the 
squares of the other two sides, is clearly proven, 
and no geometrician disputes it. 

The proposition that two and two make four, 
is an intuitive truth, and held to be a mathemati- 
cal necessity ; everybody believes it, though one 
of our modern scientists, Mr. HUXLEY, holds that 
in some other sphere they may make five / * 

In regard to these and similar things, reason 
has a fair chance to operate; and because the 
heart does not oppose, infidelity in regard to 


* «Every candid thinker will admit that there may be a world 
in which two and two do not make four, and in which two straight 
lines do not inclose a space.”—Zvidences of Evolution. He 
might as well have said that every thinker is uncandid, unless 
he admit that a triangle may be a circle, and a circle a square, 
in different sections of the universe; or that a lie, in the abstract, 
may be an absolute truth in either Venus or Jupiter. 


36 VEDDER LECTURES. 


them is not known. But if these truths were as- 
sociated with man’s moral nature, as it now is, so 
as to require him to accept the Scriptures and 
become obedient to the Christian faith, infidelity 
would not only contend that two and two might 
make five, but would find some pretext for doubt- 
ing, if not denying, scientific truth altogether. 
This disbelief and misbelief go together in all who 
reject the Scriptures as inspired of God. Athe- 
ism, therefore, does not define infidelity ; for while 
it is true that every atheist is an infidel, it is not 
true that every infidel is an atheist. The rejec- 
tion of proof, indubitably true to an unbiased 
mind, sustaining the Scriptures in all their claims, 
is the crime of infidelity against both God and 
man; and, with Rousseau, I charge all infidels, 
himself included, with ill-design against both, no 
less than with inconsistency in rejecting revealed 
truth without an attempt to show that the pecu- 
liar proofs of it are inadequate, and inferior to the 
proof within the sphere of scientific truth which 
they accept without cavil. 


Our sacred volume asserts for itself the author- 


ity of the ever-living God, but does not ask to be 
accredited upon mere assertion. For this extra- 
ordinary claim it submits appropriate and extra- 
ordinary proof, as the case demands; proof in 
rich abundance, lying inside, outside, and all 
around itself; proof that has stood the test of 
sifting ten thousand times, and as often declared 
impregnable; proof that is always the same, but 
cumulative with the lapse of years; and proof 
that has endured the teeth of infidelity for ages 


= _ — . ie “ ee, val i 
ER a TN ee ee ee NN A 


ae ie 


B 
& 


REVEALED TRUTH. 37 


without loss. By this evidence, like a munition 
of rocks around our volume, we hold it to be the 
casket of revealed truth, containing a_ perfect 
system of fact and doctrine, of means and ends, 
perfectly working for the realization of all it was 
intended to accomplish in the world; and there- 
fore revealed truth is a SCIENCE, the noblest 
known among men. Infidelity, however, denies 
all this, coolly advancing the same objections that 
have been answered over and over again, just as 
though they were fresh from its own logical 
mint. Against it Christianity has notoriously 
kept and gained ground for nearly two thousand 
years, and now the burden of proof is more 
heavily upon the shoulders of gainsayers than 
ever before; but instead of sustaining it with un- 
failing strength, they have to beg for a resting- 
place upon the new-made ground of theoretical 
geology. Infidelity claims that reason, illumined 
by the light of science, obviates the necessity of 
revelation, for which there is no requirement 
within the domain of human want. Just here am 
I best pleased to meet it. For this position, the 
only support depended upon is, as has been shown, 
the 2 priort process ; but unfortunately the argu- 
ment thence derived must fail its adherents, be- 
cause at variance with the @ przorz process itself, 
which subjects all propositions to the common 
intuitions of universal reason. Take, 

First, the proposition that there is one personal 
God, who has benevolently given to man for his guidance 
a system of revealed truth, which 1s the basis of the 
Christian religion ; what should the @ grzorz reason 


38 VEDDER LECTURES. 


do with it? Clearly, without opening the Bible, 
it should argue upon the probabilities or improb- 
abilities of that proposition in some such way as 
the following. 

1. If there be no God, there can be no Creator ; 
if no Creator, there can be no creature ; if no crea- 
ture, nothing was ever created; if nothing was 
ever created, every thing exists without a first 
cause. If there is no first cause, there can be no 
second cause; that is, no effect; if no effect, there 
could have been no change; and if no change, 
every thing now existing must have existed as 77 
is, from the eternity of the past, and must con- 
tinue so to exist to the eternity of the future. 
But this is absurd; for, by the testimony of our 
senses and of all history, changes are constant, 
natural, unavoidable, necessary, in every thing 
and everywhere; therefore, undeniably, there is a 
chain of effects, each link of which is the proxi- 
mate cause of the one coming after. This chain 
is necessarily suspended upon a great first link, 
having the nature of a first cause; and whatever 
that is, must be God; because possessed of a mind 
shown to be intelligent, by adapting means to 
ends regularly reached by the operations of 
nature. Denying this, one must also deny the 
possibility of any effect ; and if there be no effect, 
nothing really exists but apparitions. Our very 
bodies and souls, in spite of consciousness, are 
only imaginary ; nay, not even that ; because there 
can be no imagination to fabricate an imaginary 
existence. But our existence is real, and the 
proof of it is, at the same time, the proof of a Crea- 


OS ae 


as tek tte = 5 


ean 5 — v od, 3 
Pe oh ales SI ESS, Seat iaes ton, 


REVEALED TRUTH. 39 


tor, who isGod. Thus 4 priorz reason, beginning 
its work upon the aforesaid proposition, reaches 
the conclusion that it is infinitely more absurd to 
disbelieve the existence of God, than to believe it. 
Therefore nature teaches that there is a God, but 
the Bible teaches the same thing; so far, then, the 
Bible is true, because it accords with nature and 
reason. The Christian religion is founded on the 
truth of the Bible; so far, then, that is true also. 

2. The @ proort reason says: What all men, in 
every age and everywhere generally, simultane- 
ously and unconventionally believe to be true, is 
true ; because such is ascertained to have been 
-and to be the inward conviction and outspoken 
voice of universal conscience. By the testimony 
of history, all men, of every sort, in all ages of the 
world, whatever peculiarities of customs or be- 
liefs, with a few exceptions here and there not 
worth counting, have believed in one Supreme 
Eternal God; therefore, there is one such God, 
since there is no such thing as a universal specu- 
lative error. But this is the doctrine of the Bible; 
therefore, so far the Bible must be true. The 
Christian religion, founded on the Bible, noto- 
riously teaches the same doctrine; so far, then, 
that is true also. 

3. Non-existence cannot originate existence ; 
because nothing cannot produce something. But 
the heavens and the earth are produced ; there- 
fore they are the effect of an adequate cause. 
Whatever produces must be greater than the 
thing produced, and since the producer must be 
the Maker of heaven and earth, he must be that 


40 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Supreme Power we call God. But the Bible 
teaches that God is omnipotent, and that he made 
heaven and earth. The Bible, then, is so far true ; 
but the Christian religion teaches the same thing; | 
therefore, so far, that is true also. 

4. Nature is clearly a system of adaptations of 
means to ends, in a complicate contrivance for 
securing operations and results, such as we wit- 
ness every day. Light, for example, adapted to 
the eye, and the eye to light. But a contrivance 
necessitates the existence of a contriver ; which, in 
turn, necessitates intelligence; but there can be no 
intelligence without intellect, no intellect without © 
thought, no thought without a thinker, and no 
thinker without a person. Nature, therefore, 
teaches that the Omnipotent God is a person. 
But the Scriptures teach the same truth ; therefore 
the Bible is, so fav, true; and since the Christian 
religion is founded on the Bible, so far, then, that 
is true also. 

3. If there be one Omnipotent Personal God, 
his nature must be independent, spiritual, uncom- 
pounded, and eternal; for every material thing is 
corruptible, and every compound thing imperfect. 
The contriver and his contrivance must forever 
be separate in nature and relation. Pantheism 
must, therefore, be an absurdity ; for, alleging that 
God is every thing, and every thing is God, con- 
founding the Maker with the thing made, combin- 
ing the material with the immaterial, making the 
mutable to be immutable, and the finite to be infi- 
nite as well, it does the greatest possible violence 
to reason and common-sense. The Bible teaches 


REVEALED TRUTH. 4I 


the spirituality and simplicity of God; therefore, 
so far, the Bible is true; but the Christian relig- 
ion teaches the same doctrine; therefore, so far, 
that is true also. 

6. The works of God prove that he is good. 
He cannot be a malevolent being ; for a bad cause 
cannot produce a good effect. The Bible pro- 
claims the benevolence and the goodness of God; 
so far, then, is the Bible true; and so far is the 
Christian religion, which teaches the same doc- 
trines, true also. 

7. It is impossible for an intelligent being, who 
once had no beginning, to have given being to him- 
self; but there are millions of intelligent beings in 
the world who have recently come into existence: 
and the same has been true of every generation 
of their predecessors; therefore their Creator - 
must have been not only intelligent, but without 
beginning ; because nothing can go before the first 
thing, and the first cannot originate itself; since 
that would make cause and effect to be the same 
thing, which is absurd. In agreement with this 
intuitive perception, the Bible teaches that God 
had no beginning ; so fav, then, the Bible is true; 
but the Christian religion is founded on the 
Bible; so far, then, is that true, also. 

8. Reason sees that if God be a supremely 
good cause, he can never originate a bad effect. 
He cannot then be the author of sin. Man being a 
sinner, and God being sinless, it is evident that at 
some time and somewhere man must have lost 
his integrity, and so become at variance with his 
Maker. But this is the very doctrine taught in the 


42 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Bible; so far, then, is the Bible true; but the 
Christian religion is founded upon the Bible; 
so far, then, is that true also. 

9. God being supremely good, it may be held 
as most probable that he would find out some 
way for man’s restoration to happiness, without 
damage to any principle of law or government, if 
that were possible; but what reason sees might 
be possible and probable, the Bible shows to be 
certain. Thus both are in agreement, but the 
Christian religion is founded on the Bible ; there- 
fore it is also in agreement with reason on this 
point, and, so far, is true. 

10. If it be supposable that God would find out 
a method of restoration, it is also supposable that 
he would make it known to those most interested 
in knowing it; but thisinvolvesthe possibility and 
probability of a revelation. Now what reason 
pronounces possible and probable, the Bible pro- 
nounces absolutely certain ; and reason cannot ob- 
ject in the face of sufficient proof. As it is clearly 
evident, by a world-wide experience and in the 
nature of the case, that man could never have 
found out the facts and doctrines specified in the 
Bible, it follows that the Bible must have been 
inspired ; since no other theory can account for it. 
This fact it claims as indubitably real, and since 
reason perceives that this fact alone will explain 
the nature of its contents, the Bible is so far true; 
but the Christian religion is founded on the Bible ; 
therefore the Christian religion is, so far, true also. 

Thus, in ten particulars, would the @ przorz 
reason naturally deal with the proposition above 


‘REVEALED TRUTH. 43 


laid down, without opening the Bible; and by a 
fair deduction from first principles come to the 
conclusion that, by the balance.of argument in 
their favor, the Bible and the religion founded 
upon it are probably true, at least to this extent : 
that unbelief involves a greater absurdity in fact, 
than the belief of them can involve by imputation, 
or by any amount of objections that have hitherto 
been rolled up by their enemies. How is it that 
they have not noticed these points at all, which 
seem self-suggestive to a fair mind, constructing 
an adverse argument by the @ priort process? 
The omission proves, beyond question, that infi- 
delity is a conspicuous failure. Take, 

Second, another proposition, that the Gospel of 
Fesus Christ, which ts the kernel of revealed truth, 
beginning with the first promise after the fall of 
man, and fully expounded in the New Testament, ts 
the hope of the world. How would the @ priorz 
reason naturally deal with it? Beyond doubt, a 
fair judgment would demand that the New 
Testament, at least, should be read. The general 
impression as to its agreement with the fitness of 
things, its adaptedness to the wants of man, its 
tendency to promote the interests of his spiritual 
being, must arise from a candid investigation. 
Upon these and kindred points, the @ grzorz reason 
would first seize as the foundation of an intelligent 
and just verdict ; and the following, or something 
analogous, would necessarily be the process of 
thought: 

1. Does the Gospel represent God as an igno- 
rant, variable, arbitrary, and unjust Being? If 


44 VEDDER LECTURES: 


so, the @ prior? reason must at once reject it as 
untrue, no matter what kind or amount of evi- 
dence may be offered in its favor. But the con- 
trary is the precise fact. The descriptions of di- 
vine wisdom compassion and power, working for 
, human welfare, perfectly accord with the intui- 
tions of reason as to what, by natural apprehen- 
sion, God should be both in his essence and attri- 
butes, and in his administration of government. 
The mind is satisfied with his revealed arrange- 
ments purposes and providences for the good of 
the universe. Nobody can find fault here. 

2. Does the Gospel represent God with that 
grossness of nature with which Jupiter and other 
heathen divinities were clothed by their mytholo- 
gies? If so, it must at once be rejected as an 
imposition; but the reverse is the exact truth. 
“God is a spirit,” “ God is light,” “God is love.” 
The sublimity and beauty of these scriptural defi- 
nitions elicit the admiration and applause of all 
good men. Nobody can find fault here. 

3. Does the Gospel prescribe a form of worship 
irreconcilable with reason or piety, or degrading 
to mind and heart? If so,it must be rejected as an 
abomination; but just the contrary is the precise 
fact. To be worshipped at all, God must be wor- 
shipped aright ; to be worshipped aright, he must 
be worshipped “in spirit and in truth;” and to 
this reason responds with hearty approbation. 
Nobody can find fault here. 

4. Does the Gospel fail to denounce iniquity ; 
does it countenance injustice; does it tolerate 
impurity; does it confuse the mind on princi- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 45 


ples of right and wrong? If so, it must be re- 
jected as at variance with the best interests of 
man’; ‘but the’ reverse is the precisé fact: It 
condemns all iniquity, reprobates all dishonesty, 
applauds all virtue, and clearly discriminates 
between things that dignify and degrade human 
character. Truth as opposed to falsehood, jus- 
tice as opposed to injustice, integrity as oppos- 
ed to treachery, patience as opposed to passion, 
virtue as opposed to licentiousness, temperance 
as opposed to excess, sobriety as opposed to 
drunkenness, charity as opposed to selfishness, 
propriety as opposed to looseness, piety as oppos- 
ed to irreligion, notoriously are set forth in the 
Gospel as the bright ornaments of a life accepta- 
ble to God; while the entire duty of man is 
summarized in a rule of universal application, 
and of marvellous comprehension: “ As ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them.’’ Did these principles prevail all over the 
world, even the infidel will acknowledge that 
earth would bloom perpetually with the growths 
of heaven. Nobody can find fault here. 

5. Does the Gospel fail to enlighten men about 
the future, respecting which universal conscience 
is most anxious? Does it say that the present 
world limits human existence, or to live well is to 
make the most of sensuous enjoyment, since death 
is the last of us, and the grave the eternal home 
of the dead? Does it speak in Delphic oracles to 
the inquiring soul of man on this most important 
subject? If so, it would have little claim to his 
regard, and few would be found willing to choose 


46 VEDDER LECTURES. 


a faith so dismal. But the contrary is the pre- 
cise fact in every particular. It declares this life 
to be preliminary to another, the nature of which 
shall be settled forever by a judgment to come, 
whereby the wrongs of this life shall be righted, 
and the great Arbiter of human destiny shall dis- 
tribute it according to character. Nobody can 
find fault here. 
Now it is clear that the a przorz reason must 
pronounce these representations in keeping with 
the natural hopes and fears of the human mind ; 
they are in agreement with its perception of the 
fitness of things; they are suited to its apprehen- 
sions of a just moral government ; they are com- 
patible with the eternal principles of moral recti- 
tude; but they are peculiar to the Gospel—not 
being found in connection with any other system 
that ever bespoke for itself the confidence of men. 
How is it, I ask, that the champions of infidelity 
have paid no attention to these things in their 
a priort argument against revealed truth? De- 
monstrably they are the prominent points which 
should catch attention as quickly as the head- 
lands of a continent arrest the eye of the mariner 
far out at sea; but not a sentence is devoted to 
explanation. On this point profound silence 
reigns. The omission is a fatal one, and there- 
fore I say, again, the various efforts of infidelity 
have resulted in conspicuous failures during the 
whole progress of this time-worn debate. ; 
But there are other matters demanding atten- 
tion of still greater importance before the ene- 
mies of revealed truth are competent to con- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 47 


struct an argument of this kind. They relate to 
incontrovertible facts connected with the compo- 
sition of the Gospels. It isa well-known fact that 
to play the part of a consistent liar is the most 
difficult task the shrewdest man can undertake. 
Should such a one present the world with an 
elaborate fiction purporting to be a truthful his- 
tory, exact in statement, of the most exciting na- 
ture, adapted to arouse universal interest, and 
challenging investigation, he would have to deal 
in generals, cautiously avoiding particulars and 
every apparent discrepancy. Should.he descend 
to the ordinary minuteness of time, place, and cir- 
cumstance, inevitably he would be caught trip- 
ping somewhere, and would be sure of exposure 
by some one less shrewd perhaps than himself. 
Aware of the danger, he would most likely betray 
here and there some little anxiety to evade it; 
but the very caution, by its excess, would insure 
exposure. How much more readily would the 
a priort reason entrap the unskilled in this kind of 
work? It would be as great an impossibility for 
ignorance to baffle intelligence in its examination 
of such a performance, as for a blind man to pur- 
sue the calling of a civil engineer. Such is our 
conviction, and with this advantage we come to 
the perusal of the “Gospels,” and “the Acts,” 
written by four such men, ignorant, and of low 
calling in life, with one exception, and at different 
times and places, without concert of action, and 
many years after the events related had taken 
place. Thus we are in the best possible position 
for a speedy detection of fraud; and if it exist, it 


48 VEDDER LECTURES. 


can be infallibly made to appear as prominent 
as a mountain upon a plain. 

We now open these books, and find in them the 
most astounding facts and events that ever hap- 
pened, crowded together within a space short 
and comprehensive, and out of all proportion to 
their magnitude, judging by the ordinary rules 
and methods of composition. These books are not 
formal histories, but are put together, for the most 
part, as memorabilia, or annals, and for the most 
part unchronological in their details, relating the 
same facts, briefly, plainly, diversely but harmo- 
niously, in a fourfold biography of their Master, 
by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because 
their history, unlike any other, brings “ glad tid- 
ings of great joy, which shall be for all people,” as 
it is declared, each performance is called ‘‘ THE 
GOSPEL” according to each of the respective au- 
thors, of whom we have the following accounts: 

MATTHEW was a Jew, the son of a certain Al- 
pheus, residing at Capernaum, in Galilee ; and was 
well-known to its inhabitants; for he held the 
office of collector of taxes under the government, 
and was at his post in the discharge of his duty 
when called by Christ. He immediately left his 
place and business, and followed him. This fact 
of his life must have been well-known to the tax- 
payers. He became an apostle. 

MARK was also a Jew,the son of a certain 
Mary, residing at Jerusalem, and a woman of some 
little means. He might have been the young man 
referred to in his own gospel, Chap. 14, vs. 51, 52; 
and for that reason not named. He became the 


REVEALED TRUTH. 49 


companion of St. Paul, and afterwards of St. 
ereter. 

LUKE was a Gentile, born at Antioch, educated 
a physician, became a proselyte to the Jewish re- 
ligion, and then, after embracing Christianity, be- 
came a companion of St. Paul. 

JOHN was a Jew, the son of Zebedee and Sa- 
lome, residing at Capernaum, who with his father 
pursued the business of a fisherman upon the 
Lake of Galilee. He became an apostle. 

Thus we have a better account of these persons 
than of any of the authors of the classics, whose 
works we accept without question. The matters 
of the Gospel were minutely known by thousands 
of witnesses, to whom LUKE thus refers in his pre- 
face: ‘“ Forasmuch as many have taken in hand 
to set forth in order a declaration of those things 
which are most surely believed among us, evenas 
they delivered them unto us,which from the beginning 
were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, it 
seemed good to me also, having had perfect under- 
standing of all things from the very first, to write un- 
to thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus, that 
thou mightest know the certazty of those things 
wherein thou hast been instructed.” Besides, 
their works have been quoted bya long succession 
of Christian and non-Christian authors, from their 
own time until the present, far more frequently 
than the accredited histories of Xenophon or Livy, 
or any other ancient historian.. Thus much for 
authorship. Now, after diligent inspection and 
collation, what do we find ? 

1. From beginning to end of each book, we find 


50 VEDDER LECTURES. 


them absolutely teeming with particulars out of 
all proportion, as men generally write, to the 
space occupied in relating them; particulars of 
fact reference and description, pertaining to cir- 
cumstances, times, places, names, localities, public 
affairs and private concerns, all within the period 
of well-known history, and involving a goodly 
number of facilities for testing the truth of their 
narratives so ready at hand, that any one of ordi- 
nary capacity can now turn critic at once, and be 
competenttothetask. Beyond doubt, at first blush, 
seeming discrepancies, in a few instances, will stag- 
ger him; but with these facilities he will see that 
discrepancies upon the surface can be reconciled 
by harmonies beneath it, which a little patience 
will surely bring up among them; and that it 
could not well be otherwise in such pregnant 
brevity. Moreover, they are few in comparison 
with a multitude of facts boldly uttered and con- 
fidently referred to the common knowledge of 
all men then living within the localities spoken of. 
An illustration is at hand. Four artists, stationed 
at the east, west, north, and south of a few neigh- 
boring houses, take the entire group, with sur- 
roundings, at different hours of the day. In their 
pictures there would necessarily be diversity of 
light and shade, as well as transposition of objects, 
so marked that great differences would at once be 
seen. On the face of them there is little or no 
harmony, but when the artists explain that cir- 
cumstantial variation is perfectly compatible with 
substantial agreement, all difficulty in identification 
of the same subject in the four pictures instantly 


REVEALED TRUTH. 51 


vanishes. So of the Gospels. On their face there 
is not absolute harmony. It wasnot designed ; but 
when one comes to understand that each of these 
authors wrote from a different stand-point, ex- 
plaining his position with regard to the common 
subject, all is plain. Substantial agreement and 
circumstantial variation unite in proving the har- 
mony of these four narratives, no less than the 
beauty in each peculiar to itself. So that these 
very discrepancies vanish into circumstantial proof 
of the integrity of the authors. 

Now, 4 griorz reason says, this is just as it should 
be in any fourfold history, such as that here 
under her eye, as proven by the collation of any 
four histories of Greece or Rome. No human 
contrivance, thus put forth, could possibly prevail 
in making fiction and forgery to be universally 
accepted as fact and truth for any length of time, 
much less for the period of nearly two thousand 
years of conflict, during which the Gospel has out- 
lived allopposing forces. Thus far, then, the laws of 
evidence, and that by which 4 grzorz reason is gov- 
erned, seem to stamp the whole with the unmis- 
takable seal of truth. No man can deny it. No one, 
actuated by honesty and candor, can question 
that here is at least a degree of probability so 
high in favor of the absolute truth of the Gospel, 
that it demands to be explained away by all who 
oppose themselves. How is it, then, that our in- 
fidel authors who have attempted to write down 
the Gospel, or those who offer their sneers in lieu 
of better stuff, are profoundly silent on this point 
so vital to the legitimate construction of an &@ priore 


2 VEDDER LECTURES. 


argument? In all other historical investigations, 
such particulars as I have mentioned are regard- 
ed as sure stepping-stones to the discovery of 
truth. Howcomes it, then, that the Gospel docu- 
ments are refused the benefits that learned infi- 
delity fully accords to all others of far less impor- 
tance by common consent? There can be but 
one answer. 

2. The next and most important matter that 
arrests attention is the central theme of the Gos- 
pel—_the Hero of the story, JEsuSs CHRIST OF 
NAZARETH. In all the world, has any character 
like his ever before or since attracted the eyes of | 
men? Is it, in any of its aspects, like the best 
characters of Grecian or Roman story? Is it, in 
any thing, similar to those which descriptive talent 
has given to the heroes of tragedy or romance? 
Isit at all in keeping with any the world has been 
accustomed to look upon and applaud? Does it 
even accord in any one particular with the world’s 
best specimens of goodness and virtue? Some 
have ventured to single out Socrates from among 
the old heathen worthies. Let Rousseau’s an- 
swer, On a previous page, be recalled. Every 
man must say, No. Here we find a portrait the 
very reverse of human likeness, except in outward 
form ; a character too noble, too sublime for any 
mortal mind of that or any other age to zuvent. 
Its excellence is so absolutely perfect, that to mend 
it is-to mar it. Clearly it belongs not only to a 
real being, but to an original being, the like of whom 
never existed among men. This circumstance 
alone makes the gospel history of unrivalled in- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 53 


terest, and naturally subjects it to the severest 
possible test. It challenges the wit of man to in- 
vestigation. We fail to receive the full impression 
it ought to make upon us, because we have been 
familiar with it from childhood; but, divesting 
ourselves as far as we can of prepossessions, when 
we take a fair comprehensive view of the history 
of Jesus Christ, we must see that it stands more 
completely apart from all other biographies, than 
the sun in its vertical brightness from the hosts 
of stars hidden by his rays. We can imagine 
other suns like ours around which planets lay 
their courses, but we cannot think of another 
Jesus, nor of another history like his. We read, 
in the beginning of our sacred volume and in con- 
nection with the great calamity of the fall, the 
promise of God, that the seed of the woman should 
bruise the serpent’s head. Four thousand years 
elapse, filled with the melancholy results of sin. 
Then Jesus of Nazareth appears. He comes into 
the world as no other ever did. Though dorn, he 
is made of a woman; though free from sin, he is 
“made under the law” which holds all men with- 
out exception under a common condemnation. 
The wonders attending his birth find no parallel 
in human history. Nor is it much less wonderful 
that a being, whose birth was attended with such 
august manifestations, amidst the humblest cir- 
cumstances, instead of growing up to early dis- 
tinction, power, and renown, should absolutely 
sink out of sight for the first thirty years of his 
life. Nothing like this, in fact or fiction, is to be 
found in the annals of the world. At the end of 


54 VEDDER LECTURES. 


that time, he suddenly comes out of obscurity, 
and from a district of country proverbial for 
ignorance and barbarity. He had never learned. 
Watch now his steps, and scan his conduct from 
day today. He pays no regard to riches, honors, 
or fame, but is ever found among the lowly; yet 
he opens up a public life of but three years’ contin- 
uance, or a little more, which for astounding re- 
sults has never been approached by the greatest 
of men of the longest life and most numerous ad- 
vantages. Wonders of godlike achievement, 
wisdom of godlike quality, attend him; an unos- 
tentatious benefactor to all, without fee or reward ; 
a stranger to ambition, and by choice a companion 
of the poor. Nothing of this kind has ever been 
known to mark the conduct of the world’s great 
men, who have been embalmed in its admiration. 
Follow him in his wearisome journeys, and wit- 
ness the displays of his wisdom, and his unselfish 
converse with men. He undertakes the moral 
transformation of the race. He purifies the whole 
body of moral science. He utters maxims that 
cast into the deepest shade the loftiest sayings of 
philosophy. He presents an unfaltering example 
of the noblest virtue—thus illustrating every pre- 
cept that fell from his lips. He devotes himself 
to the great business of reclaiming the world, not 
by his //e, as we would naturally expect, but by 
his death, of which we should never have dreamed. 
For this purpose he /oretells it shall be accom- 
plished by violent means. Living without offence, 
laboring without reward, suffering without com- 
plaint, he has arraigned against him implacable 


REVEALED ‘TRUTH. 55 


enemies, whose burning hate is fired by their own 
ill-concealed malevolence of heart, whose skill 
is exhausted to betray him into some _indis- 
cretion, but who always come off second best 
in every attempt. His loving soul steadily directs 
his hand in wonderful sanative power for the re- 
lief of the afflicted; his innocence of guile and 
fortitude of purpose conduct him through sore 
privations and baffled plots, spotless as the un- 
fallen snow. Envy itself cannot find a flaw in his 
character, nor a plausible excuse for defamation. 
In every difficult position he is forced to take by 
“the contradiction of sinners,” he maintains the 
most dignified decorum, while managing his own 
cause with consummate skill. His penetration 
into the constitution of our moral being places 
him, in solitary majesty, far above all earthly 
sages, the anatomist of the human heart. The 
depth of his knowledge, the simplicity and sublim- 
ity of its utterance, the comprehensiveness of his 
thoughts, their coherence in showing the purity 
of his doctrine, extorted from soldiers sent to ap- 
prehend him this testimony, given by way of ex- 
cuse for not doing it: “ Never man spake as this 
man !” 

These words of unparalleled wisdom, these 
instructions of weightiest import, these works of 
benevolence in a life of love, we have in the sim- 
ple narratives of the Gospel; and every man can 
judge for himself. If they did not come from 
Jesus Christ, how did they get into that book, and 
whence did they come? If they did come from 
him, how is it that the @ frior¢ argument of infi- 


56 VEDDER LECTURES. 


delity fails to show how such a wonderful char- 
acter can belong to a bad man? For bad man he 
surely was, if Jesus Christ was an impostor. If 
he was only a man, he was the worst man that 
ever lived, because he claimed eguality with God, 
and made himself the most enduring idol, and his 
system the most destructive form of idolatry the 
world ever saw. If he was a good man, he must 
have been God as well; because incapable of blas- 
phemy so hideous as that for which the Jews 
“took up stones to stone him;” and because his 
miracles were divine attestations to the truth of his 
claim, since they were clearly such as none but 
God could do; if he was a good man, then he was 
the Messiah; if the Messiah, then he was fore- 
told in numerous prophecies found in the Old 
Testament; and that proves the Bible to be the 
casket of revealed truth. So urgent are these 
things upon the attention of the infidel, that a 
satisfactory account of them must be made before 
he can be entitled to a hearing, before his objec- 
tions can find a spot to stand upon; but no such 
account has ever been given, hence the @ priorz 
argument of infidelity by its glaring omissions be- 
comes a conspicuous failure. 

That a life spent in doing good continually, 
and never discolored by a stain, should be ended 
upon a gibbet with the worst of criminals desery- 
ing such a fate, is not a little surprising. Jesus 
Christ could make this appeal to his enemies: 
‘Which of you convinceth me of sin?” and they 
were as dumbas the dead. But, unfaltering in their 
purpose, a company of Jewish priests and rulers, 


REVEALED TRUTH. 57 


led by a traitor who was familiar with Christ’s 
little company, of whom he was one, with a band 
of soldiers finally go by night to capture him. 
Notwithstanding it was full moon, they take /an- 
terns as well as weapons to insure the success of 
their project. They soon find him, and are them- 
selves surprised by being mysteriously smitten 
to the ground with a word from his mouth, and 
then by a voluntary surrender of himself to their 
will. They hurry him through the mockery of a 
trial, before the dawn of day, and condemn him to 
death for blasphemy, without evidence; but, un- 
able to carry out their own wicked verdict, be- 
cause deprived of the power to inflict capital pun- 
ishment, they hurry him to another trial in a 
Roman court upon another charge—the charge 
of ¢reason—where he is tried and acguztted. Stung 
into madness, they make demonstrations so furl- 
ous as to induce the cowardly judge to surrender 
the prisoner to death, for a crime not recognized 
by Roman law—a most remarkable combination 
o1 circumstances, for which, however, no explana- 
tion is given. Jesus was superior to all others 
in his life; so he surpassed all others in his death. 
Amid the tortures of a Roman penalty for no 
crime by Roman law, when nailed to the cross, 
instead of the complaints of injured innocence 
and outcries against the cruelest outrage, a won- 
drous prayer for the poor wretches is heard from 
his lips, amidst the strokes of the hammer: “ Fa- 
ther, forgive them, for they know not what they 
do.” Such another scene was never witnessed in 
this sin-cursed world, much less could it ever 


58 VEDDER LECTURES. 


have been contrived by any imagination schooled 
in an age when revenge was held to be a virtue. 
Now, @ priori reason would naturally ask: How 
came it that men of no culture, emerging from 
the dark realm of ignorance, could conceive such 
a character; or how was it possible for them to 
write their narratives in such a way as to force all 
intelligent readers to the conviction that they 
have before them the most wonderful history ? 
Except upon the supposition that they relate 
nothing but genuine fact, their narratives are ab- 
solutely unaccountable ; for no man, or set of men, 
especially such men, could ever be able to fabricate 
any thing like them. This is so clearly self-evi- 
dent that it will not bear an attempt at proof. 
It is human to err; no one, therefore, could hope 
for credit should he run counter to human nature 
in description of character. Should any one at- 
tempt it, with no better model for general guid- 
ance than the best of men could furnish, he would 
be sure to fail. How much, then, is the difficulty 
increased, when four attempt the same thing, each 
independent of the others, and at periods variously 
distant from the time when the subject of their 
common biography was removed from the earth; 
and how much more difficult when that character 
must be the zucarnation of Godhead, and the 
writers Galilean fishermen? Yet here we have 
it by just such authors! They tell a plain, unvar- 
nished story, with all the incidents above referred 
to, involving the greatest apparent necessity for 
explanation without betraying any anxiety about 
the truth of their story, and without attempting 


REVEALED TRUTH. 59 


to explain such strange thingsas, for example, the 
success of Jesus in whipping the money-changers 
out of the temple, after overturning their tables, 
without meeting resistance. Other matters, 
equally strange, are also recorded, that ordinary 
writers would be sure to accompany by explan- 
atory clauses for the sake of greater verisimilitude, 
but the language of the Evangelists have no such 
clauses. It is surprisingly calm, stating, in the 
briefest terms, the most astounding things, just as 
if relating the ordinary affairs of everyday life. 
We find no expressions of surprise, no pompous 
announcements, no studied arrangements, no de- 
clamation, no fondness for multiplying marvellous 
things, no explanations of apparent difficulties; 
and as the writers go artlessly on with their story, 
they state their own faults, as parts of it, without 
any attempt at concealment, even in disgraceful 
conduct. Pureunadorned nature, without a trope, 
is seen in every paragraph. Now here is a method 
of writing, common to them all, nowhere else found 
in any ordinary author, and is a point demand- 
ing special notice. Do we find authors of their 
time, or of any other time, marked by their pecu- 
liarities of style or diction? Do we find a single 
one, the Old Testament writers excepted, setting 
forth exciting and tragical events without some 
signs of emotion, or some little expression of 
Opinion and feeling with regard to them? Do 
other authors, of any age, whose works have 
come down to us, express themselves, like our 
Evangelists, as if under oath in a court of justice, 
adhering strictly to matters of fact, without a sin- 


60 VEDDER LECTURES. 


gle comment? If not, then why are these authors 
so purely exceptional in their mode of diction? 
What can account for the restraint upon their 
pens, so utterly unfelt by all others? Surely there 
never was such a history, not only, but there never 
was such a writing of history since the world be- 
gan. Is it, then, credible that such men as our 
evangelists are known to have been could have 
invented such a character, and could have forged 
such a history as their respective Gospels contain? 
There can be but one answer. Admit that the 
Gospels are genuine, it must be admitted that the 
writers depict their Master from life. Say that 
the reputed authors were incompetent to the task: 
much less, it must be said, could any others, sub- 
sequent to their time, have accomplished it. In 
any case, these documents are no less wonderful 
on account of their authorship than for their con- 
tents. Now their existence is a fact which must 
be satisfactorily accounted for. Suppose two men 
of our own day, brought up to the fisherman’s 
calling, should abandon their nets, and, to improve 
their condition, should set about the writing of 
novels, how would they succeed? Need I ask? 
To say the least, their stories would smell of their 
fish, and they would soon discover it the better 
policy to return to their tackle and smacks. Can 
it then be reasonably supposed that such writers 
of the earliest age in Christian chronology, with 
no advantages whatever, could not only succeed . 
better, but actually eclipse the most gifted that 
ever wrote in any age; and by their simply formed 
works of fiction, multiplied and still multiplying 


REVEALED TRUTH. 61 


by millions of copies, could have set in motion, 
and could have kept in progress for nearly two 
thousand years, a revolution that first swept the 
Roman Empire within four hundred years, and 
since has swept the world? A more preposterous 
supposition could not disgrace the brains of an 
idiot. But the brief works of our evangelists have 
actually done this very thing, and now are floating 
upon the popular tide more triumphantly than 
ever, translated in every language and extending 
into every clime. 

The first question now to be settled by the 
& priori reason of infidelity includes a settlement 
of this point: How did these naturally incom- 
petent authors write such a wonderful history, 
and how has it accomplished such a wonderful 
revolution? Undeniably, here is a mighty moral 
miracle, the effects of which all men know by 
their own experience. No mancandeny it. The 
Gospels themselves have predicted their own suc- 
cess, which is now confessedly great, but yet to 
be realized in a far greater degree, beyond the 
experience of our own age; andif any now dispute 
their claim, they are bound to support all oppo- 
sition by explaining this moral miracle to the sat- 
isfaction of the common-sense of mankind, or 
accept the doctrine of their inspiration and diffu- 
sion by divine efficiency. This is the alternative 
now set before the champions of infidelity; yet 
they decline to explain the facts of the documents, 
on the one hand, and to accept the doctrine, on 
the other. Whether the accredited evangelists 
be or be not the authors of these documents, the 


62 VEDDER LECTURES. 


facts of their existence, contents, and influence 
are still the same, and must be accounted for by 
gainsayers. Why have these points been ignored ? 
There can be but one answer. Infidelity exhibits 
a failure in the field of argument, as great as its 
falsehood in the field of morals. 

3. The religion of Jesus Christ is altogether 
original, and totally different from every other 
system that has obtained currency in the world. 
Every intelligent man knows this. It isa religion 
based upon fac¢s,and not uponopinions. Itis the 
outgrowth of principles long familiar to the He- 
brew mind, but to no other class of mind at or 
since the days of Moses who wrote of Christ. 
He endorsed Moses and the whole of the Old 
Testament, whose religious significance was sal- 
vation through himself, as “the Lamb of God 
slain from before the foundation of the world,” 
typified by the imposing service of the Hebrew 
ritual. Thus he spoke to certain disciples who 
bewailed their disappointment by the calamity 
of the crucifixion: “O fools, and slow of heart 
to believe all that the prophets have spoken; 
ought not Christ to have suffered these things and . 
to enter into his glory?” And to the Apostles, 
just before he left the world: “These are the 
words which I spake unto you while I was yet 
with you, that all things must be fulfilled which 
were written in the law of Moses, and in the pro- 
phets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” The 
meaning of that ritual, then, was “ Christ and him 
crucified.” Take away this fact and the whole 
fabric falls into ruins, like a house blown from its 
foundation by an explosion of dynamite. The 


REVEALED TRUTH. 63 


scriptures of the Old Testament, of which those 
of the New are the flowering and the fruitage, 
he held to be revealed truth, recognizing all its 
facts to be true facts just as they are recorded ; 
the written moral law to be the divine standard 
of right and wrong; and the doctrines contained 
in them as the true principles of sound religious 
belief, needing only the expositions and illustra- 
tions of the Messiah, who came not to destroy “ the 
law and the prophets, but to fulfil them.” His 
religion, therefore, has been in the world from 
the beginning, divided into two dispensations, the 
ante-Messianic and the post-Messianic, but essen- 
tially the same; original in its plan, doctrine, and 
adaptation, and in all these particulars wonder- 
fully comprehensive. 

(1.) It is original in its plan. Go among all the 
nations that have been and are now upon earth, 
where can you find any thing like it? Observe 
the nature and tendency of their beliefs and wor- 
ship. Their respective religions are based upon 
opinions designed to control distinctive commu- 
nities; hence they are local in their influences, 
united with secular government for political pur- 
poses, and for nothing else. But the Christian 
religion is planned for the whole human race, and 
is meant to be general, emancipating men from 
the grasp of spiritual despotism, and at the same 
time making them more efficient for political 
duties, by the infusion of principles which bind 
the human conscience to the law of God and 
set it free from guilt by faith in a Saviour who 
“died, the just for the unjust, that he might 
bring us to God.” 


64 VEDDER LECTURES. 


(2.) It is original in its doctrines, all of which 
are founded upon facts and principles of which 
other religious systems are wholly destitute. They 
are mainly as follows: 

[1.] It teaches the being, attributes and provi- 
dence of a personal God, in whose unity there is a 
triplicity, distinguished by names and personal pro- 
nouns; who, having created, governs the universe 
—being everywhere present, knowing all things, 
and upholding all things, at every instant of time. 

[2.] It teaches that the human race is totally 
depraved—having descended from and inherited 
the moral corruption of an apostate representative 
parentage—and is, therefore, under the condem- 
nation of moral law, without help from its own 
resources, and without hope from any superior 
order of created intelligences. 

[3.] It teaches that the love of God devised, 
and the power of God executed, the only plan of 
a plenary and perfect recovery for all who will 
accept the gospel of grace, relying solely upon the 
vicarious atonement of a Saviour, through whom 
mercy is thus made to flow to the guilty. 

[4.] It teaches that this Saviour is an original 
being, uniting godhead and manhood in one 
personality, that, as a competent mediator, he 
might be egual to both parties between whom 
he mediates. 

[5.] It teaches that all who come to God through 
Christ are regenerated and sanctified by the Holy 
Spirit, whose office it is to glorify Christ and 
gather “out of the Gentiles a people for his 
name”—Christians in deed and in truth. 


REVEALED TRUTH. 65 


[6.] It teaches the resurrection of Christ, and 
the resurrection of all men from the grave, who 
shall appear before his judgment-seat at the grand 
assizes of the last day; a judgment to come; a 
heaven to be won, anda hell to be shunned, by 
those who have to this end yielded obedience to 
the Gospel. 

[7.] It teaches that Christ is personally to come 


_ back to this earth, to reign and rule, recovering 


it from the dominion of evil and establishing “a 
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages 
should serve him; his dominion an everlasting 
dominion, which shall not pass away, and his 
kingdom one that shall not be destroyed ;” that 
this “kingdom shall not be left to other people, but 
it shall break in pieces and consume all (other) 
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” in their 
place and room; and that “the kingdom, and do- 
minion, and the greatness of the kingdom UNDER 
THE WHOLE HEAVEN, shall be given to the people 
of the saints of the Most High.” (Dan., chap. vii.) 

Such is the frame of doctrine built upon a foun- 
dation of facts which constitutes the holy temple 
of revealed truth, the best boon of Heaven for 
the religious instruction and salvation of men. 
The originality of the facts, the sublimity of the 
doctrine, and the efficiency of the plan, with the 
practical duties thence arising for the moral im- 
provement and eternal benefit of man, prove the 
science of revealed truth to be of all others the 
greatest, most comprehensive and most needful to 
the welfare of the human race. Now, the won- 
derful contrast between the matter and the lan- 


66 -VEDDER LECTURES. 


guage of the Gospels shows that the marks of 
human authorship are not in them. No labored 
periods commensurate with dignity of sentiment, 
novelty of miracle, or profundity of truth are 
found in them. The writers seem to be alike 
reined in by the steady hand of a mysterious con- 
trolling power, so that their writings might wear 
an aspect that should ever distinguish them from 
all others of mere human authorship. Have the 
sacred books of other religions, let me ask, ever 
ventured upon a definitionof God? Have any of 
them ever declared the unpardonable nature of 
sin or declared forgiveness to be a cardinal grace 
inman? Whence then did this religion come? 
Could one of its facts or of its doctrines ever have 
been woven into a fabric of an all-comprehensive 
utility to mankind in the loom of human inge- 
nuity? These are pertinent questions in the 
judgment of 4 griord reason; and since infidelity 
professedly argues itself out upon this line, its de- 
fenders are bound to answer them satisfactorily to 
common-sense. Why has there been no attempt 
in this direction? There can be but one answer. 
As to recent efforts, we believe that the modern 
sophistry of scientists shall meet with no better 
success than the old science of sophists, in their 
attacks upon revealed truth. 

(3.) The Christian religion is original in its 
adaptation. Wherever it has gone over the globe, 
it has proved itself adequate to the spiritual and 
intellectual necessities of all kinds of men, irre- 
spective of differences in race, climate, language, 
habit, or in any thing else that modifies social 


REVEALED TRUTH. 67 


life. Human nature is the same the world 
over. Evil actions everywhere proceed from 
evil thoughts, and no human law can reach them. 
The wretchedness of the world comes from the 
seething passions of the depraved heart, and no 
human power can quench the fire; but the reli- 
gion of Christ alone has proved itself able to do 
this, wherever it has had a fair chance to operate. 
To this end the Holy Scriptures are adapted, and 
by the testimony of millions they reach it. 
Learned works are written for learned men, 
whose influence over others below them is relied 
upon by the world’s reformers for controlling 
human affairs. It would be absurd to put a book 
like Hamilton’s Lectures on Logic in the hands of 
an illiterate man, and equally foolish to offer a 
common-school book to a philosopher; but the 
Holy Scriptures are adapted to all classes of 
mind, from that of the child to that of the wisest 
of men. The theory of religion found in them is 
adapted to the spiritual and moral wants of the 
human race. The writers are better known to us 
than the authors of ancient histories or of philoso- 
phies, whose works have always been accredited 
to them by name without dispute; and in the 
face of this fact, it is in vain to call in question the 
personal histories of our evangelists for the pur- 
pose of discrediting the Gospels. Now, the @ priori 
reason must ask: Where did this history and this 
theory come from? Is it possible that the base- 
born, the low-bred and illiterate, could have in- 
vented it? Why has infidelity overlooked this 
matter? There can be but one answer. 


68 VEDDER LECTURES. 


The @ friorz argument, correctly conducted to 
the fair disposition of such points as I have men- 
tioned, and upon which the infidel is so profoundly 
silent, rolls up an amount of internal evidence 
from the Scriptures themselves absolutely over- 
whelming. The pretence that it goes all the 
other way, in the face of omissions above indi- 
cated, is a gross absurdity and an amazing imper- 
tinence, because an attempt to palm off the bald- 
est fallacy upon the common-sense of the world. 


Bie Cris Urabe hk. 


REVEALED TRUTH. 


THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT. 


Facts to be proved 2 fosteriori—Nature of the argument—Prophecy— 
Pentateuch—Greenleaf's ‘‘ Testimony of the Evangelists '’ commended 
—Legal Rules of Evidence—Prophecy and fulfilment a standing mira- 
cle—Fulfilment in spite of millions of chances against it an overwhelm- 
ing argument—Prophecies of the Messiah—A dilemma—How the ful- 
filment of prophecy is proof of a doctrine—Prophecies uttered by Christ 
and their fulfilment—Eusebius’s comparison between Evangelists and 
Josephus—Two ends gained by Prophecy—Miracles—Infidel argu- 
ments retorted—Gospel miracles such as none but God could do— 
Illustration—Egyptian miracles—The credentials of Revealed Truth 
early given, and continued to the end—Miracles of Christ classified— 
Proof of their performance tested by legal rules of evidence—Hume'’s 
argument—They imply no suspension of the laws of nature—Two 
objects gained by the miracles of Christ—The possibility of Revealed 
Truth fatal to the force of infidel arguments. 


IF it be proved that God has spoken to man at 
any time and in azy manner, it will not be doubted 
that he may have spoken to him at “sundry times 
and in divers manners;” and such communica- 
tions will be readily admitted as revealed truth; 
by which is meanta class of facts, not discoverable 


70 VEDDER LECTURES. 


by the human mind, underlying a class of doctrines 
supernaturally taught as necessary to the present, 
prospective, and permanent welfare of our race. 
Nor can it be reasonably doubted that natural 
ignorance and absolute dependence show how 
much man needs revealed truth, for the good- 
ness of God on the one hand, and the necessities 
of man on the other, will be seen by intuition and 
felt by consciousness of want, to be the made ground 
of all moral certainty attainable in this matter. If 
it be shown that these facts and doctrines are 
adapted to the intellectual and moral nature of 
man, it will at the same time become obvious that 
it is necessary they should be made known to him, 
that they should be confidently believed by him, 
and that to this end they should be adequately 
attested by such evidence asall men rely upon for 
the reality of things. This being made clear, we 
have really come to the end of all debate; for a 
supposable rational counter-belief, in the face of 
such proof, would either reduce the reason to in- 
sanity, or the mind, in all its emotions, to a state of 
moral distraction, and is therefore plainly absurd. 

Every man, made a Christian by the power of 
revealed truth upon his own heart, has the wit- 
ness in himself; and although it removes all doubt 
from him, it cannot be made by a mere statement 
to do the same service for others; hence he must 
establish the truth of his facts and doctrines by 
arguments which the common-sense of mankind 
will allow, and respecting which the experience 
of one man cannot be opposed to the experience 
of another. Hitherto I have confined myself to 


REVEALED TRUTH. 71 


the @ griort argument, which is independent of 
all experience and observation, to show, first, the 
fallacy of the infidel in his way of conducting it; 
and, secondly, that when properly unfolded, from 
the working of the mind with abstract thought, 
it is most powerfully upon the side of revealed 
truth. From the force of circumstances, the na- 
ture of things, and the laws of mind, that argu- 
mentative process shows that the Gosnel of Jesus 
Christ, while it teaches wonderful things, does not 
teach inconsistencies ; it shows that the very ex- 
istence of the Gospel is inexplicable on any other 
supposition than that of its heavenly origin; and 
that, regarding it asa mere human performance, 
it is seen to be girt about with self-evident im- 
possibility, asserting a mightier miracle than has 
ever been witnessed since the world began. In 
the nature of things, the Gospel cannot exist un- 
less it be true; but it does exist, therefore it is 
true. 

In what I shall have to say of the Scriptures, I 
shall mainly confine my references to the five his- 
torical books of the Evangelists, and the five books 
of Moses, commonly called the Pentateuch, and 
for this reason: The science of revealed truth, 
like every other science, is built upon a foundation 
of facts; and because no other but the Christian 
religion can say this, no other religion can claim 
connection with science. These books contain all 
the facts in the case, which, if shown to be indubit- 
ably true, just as all other historical facts are 
proven, infidelity will be left speechless, though it 
may long gibber like a drunken man. 


72 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Supposing the facts of our volume to be as 
represented, the doctrines built upon them are 
unquestionably true; but their vea/zty can only be 
laid bare by ¢estémony which the @ posteriort argu- 
ment must furnish. That is dependent both upon 
observation and experience. Now if this testi- 
mony be such as will establish any fact in civil 
courts, it ought to satisfy every man; but if it pe 
more than this, if it be such as one but God could 
give, in addition to all that man can give, there must 
be an end of the matter, and infidelity is bound to 
account for all these facts, proven to be true, before 
it can support a contradiction; it must show this 
testimony of God and man to be false, before it 
can justify unbelief; and if it do neither, as it has 
not yet done, it must prove itself at once an im- 
placable enemy to both. 

I need hardly say that the @ posteriort argument 
is directly the reverse process of the one already 
considered. It proceeds by observation, back- 
wards, from plain matters of fact to those more 
recondite, and so on to the discovery of hidden 
causes; and whenits results come out in confirma- 
tion of those arrived at by the & priori process, 
probability becomes moral certainty. It cannot 
be otherwise, because the assurance of reasoning 
thus gained is just as reliable for the certainty of 
truth as is the assurance of reason for its own ex- 
istence. The argument, in brief, is this: : 

The existence and power of God, as the first 
cause of all things, being granted, the facts de- 
clared to have been done by him, if proved to be 
such as none but God could do, prove the doc- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 73 


trines thereby attested to be infallibly true. Begin- 
ning with the date of four thousand years be- 
fore Christ, the Old Testament reveals the facts 
of the creation, of the fall of man, and the prom- 
ise of his recovery by ¢he seed of the woman. This 
is the mother-promise and the mother-prophe- 
cy; all others subsequently issuing from human 
lips throughout this period were suspended upon 
it. Some of them were to be fulfilled before, 
some at, and some after the appearance of the great 
Deliverer. All these are contained in the sacred 
books of an early and peculiar people, existing 
down to the present day, preserved as no other 
nation has ever been preserved, and holding these 
books as a peculiar heritage, more sacred in their 
regard than life itself. The fulfilment of all of 
them was to be the unanswerable proof that this 
Deliverer, indicated in the mother-promise afore- 
said, was no other than JESUS CHRIST, born in 
Bethlehem of Judea, under the reign of Augustus 
Czesar. The New Testament, which is the com- 
plement of the Old, contains the wonderful history 
of the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension 
of Christ, attested by stupendous miracles wrought 
by himself continuously, for more than three 
years, in the face of day and of multitudes, includ- 
ing enemies who at the time, and sore against their 
will, admitted them to be real facts, just as related, 
These were followed by another series of miracles, 
wrought in his name for a long time after he had 
left the earth by those whom he qualified to work 
them, and whom he commissioned to teach his sys- 
tem of doctrine, in confirmation of which miracles 


74 “VEDDER LECTURES. 


were continued until the evidence of revealed 
truth was so thoroughly established that nothing 
against it should ever be able to prevail. The @ 
postertort argument compares the alleged facts of 
fulfilment with the facts of prediction, ¢ as it goes 
back from effect to cause. 

The evidence of revealed truth is such as 
none but God could give. This falls under the 
heads of prophecy and miracle. | 

I, PROPHECY.—New Testament facts are largely 
the fulfilments of Old Testament prophecy, cov- 
ering a period of four thousand years. These ful- 
filments, like image and object in photography, 
so exactly correspond, that, in order to get rid of 
the forcible proof, infidels have exhausted their 
ingenuity in the effort of showing that the Old 
Testament was forged, to give credibility to the 
New! This is so utterly preposterous that noth- 
ing but the maliciousness of the charge can equal 
its stupidity. Had the Jews been friendly to 
Christ, and at one with him in a common inter- 
est, there might have been some color for this 
pretext, though not a particle of hope in making 
it good; but, instead, they were his bitter ene- 
mies; and so strong was it, that their enmity has 
flowed with their blood down through their de- 
scendants, unabated, to this day. So far did they 
carry their malice that, on account of the argu- 
mentative power in favor of the Messiahship of 
Christ which the early Christians derived from 
the prophecy of Daniel, they degraded that book 
from the high position it held among their pro- 
phetical books to a lower one in another division 


REVEALED TRUTH. 76 


of their scriptures called the Hagiographa, or 
sacred writings. They dared not to mutilate 
the Sacred Canon, but they did all they dared, 
with a hearty good will, to destroy the force of 
the Christians’ argument from prophecy. They 
would indeed have had no remorse for forging 
any amount of lies against Christ and Christian- 
ity, but they would rather die than admit a single 
sentence of their sacred books to bea forgery. In 
this matter all their history proves they can be 
trusted to any extent. But the fact is, we are not 
dependent upon Jewish fidelity at all. It is well 
known that the Old Testament was translated 
into Greek two hundred and eighty-seven years 
before Christ was born, and scattered all over the 
world wherever Jews were found. This transla- 
tion was read in every synagogue, and commonly 
used by the Jewish people at the time of the birth 
of Christ, and for a long time after, and is at this 
day widely circulated as an important help to the 
exposition of the Word of God. Now, in this 
translation, which is a fair rendering of the orig- 
inal, all the prophecies are found; therefore the 
absurd plea of forgery betrays a worse feeling 
than that of weakness on the part of all who ven- 
ture it. This is circumstantial evidence keen 
enough to cut every sinew of the infidel argu- 
ment, if it ever had any, that Old Testament 
prophecies were written subsequent to the events 
alleged as their fulfilment. 

To make certainty doubly sure, however, the 
antiquity of the Pentateuch, or five books of 
Moses, is attested by a most singular fact. It will 


76 VEDDER LECTURES. 


be remembered that Nehemiah was appointed by 
the King of Persia to rebuild the walls of Jeru- 
salem. In this great work he was opposed by 
Sanballat, governor of Samaria, but in vain. 
Nehemiah completed the work, and made regu- 
lations for the people under his charge. Some of 
them were so highly offensive to Manasseh, son- 
in-law to Sanballat, that he retired into Samaria 
and. became the founder of a religious sect im- 
placably hostile to the Jews, arrogating to them- 
selves the honor of being the only true Israelites. 
Manasseh built a temple to the God of Israel on 
Mount Gerizzim, and provided his converts with 
the five books of Moses, as their rule of faith, 
concealing the later books, lest the respectful 
allusions made in them to the sanctity of Jeru- 
salem should disparage his own temple in Sama- 
ria. This schism took place many centuries before 
Christ, and produced a quarrel so violent that 
the common civilities of life were not extended by 
Jew to Samaritan, nor by Samaritan to Jew, though 
they dwelt together in the same land. However 
divided on all other matters, they were, neverthe- 
less, perfectly united in a common veneration for 
the Pentateuch. For either of them to have cor- 
rupted it in the smallest particular was utterly 
impossible, because both parties had eyes of reli- 
gious prejudice glaring upon each other. The 
singular fact above alluded to is this: In the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, after being 
unknown for a thousand years, copies of the Sa- 
maritan Pentateuch were found among the rem- 
nant that worshipped still at Gerizzim, and six 


REVEALED TRUTH. 77 


were purchased by Usher in the early part of it. 
“Thus we are brought to the conclusion that the 
Samaritan, as well as the Jewish copy, originally 
flowed from the autograph of Moses. The two 
constitute, in fact, different recensions of the same 
work, and coalesce tn point of history.” 

The Pentateuch contain a series of first facts 
and first things, followed by a system of moral 
and ceremonial laws which, by the authority of 
all history, were observed by the Israelites down 
to their dispersion among the nations of the earth. 
Other books of the Old Testament imply the 
previous existence of the five books of Moses; 
and throughout them all references are had to 
these facts and things, but more frequently to 
these laws as regulating the religion and civil 
polity of the Jews. The whole of the temple ser- 
vice was arranged by Solomon, a thousand years 
before Christ, according to the law of the Penta- 
teuch; and at his advent all the books of the 
Old Testament, as we have them, were known 
throughout the world as the sacred books of the 
Jews. No intelligent infidel will deny this state- 
ment. 


‘““The genuineness of these writings,” says Dr. Greenleaf, an 
eminent lawyer, author, and Professor of Law in Harvard Uni- 
versity, ‘‘ really admits of as little doubt, and is susceptible of 
as ready proof, as that of any ancient writings whatever. The 
rule of municipal law on this subject is familiar, and applies 
with equal force to all ancient writings, whether documentary or 
otherwise ; and as it comes first in order, in the prosecution of 
these inquiries, it may, for the sake of mere convenience, be 
designated as our first rule” (of evidence), 

“Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper re- 


78 VEDDER LECTURES. 


posttory or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of for- 
gery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing 
party the burden of proving it otherwise.” —(Testimony of the Evan- 


gelists, p. 7.)* : ; 

‘Tf it be objected that the originals are lost, and that copies 
alone are now produced, the principles of the municipal law here 
also afford a satisfactory answer. For the multiplication of 
copies was a public fact, in the faithfulness of which all the 
Christian community had an interest; and it isa rule of law 
that 

‘*In matters of public and general interest all persons must be 
presumed to be conversant with their own affairs.” —p. 9. 

Thus, it appears, the principles of civil law, 
common to every enlightened country, recognize 
the genuineness of our sacred books; and all the 
more, because they have sustained themselves 
against all manners of attack for ages, and are 
more multiplied now than ever before. How 
comes it that our infidel writers are so profoundly 
silent upon these points of law and fact; and how 
is it that such a marvellous history as that of the 
Bible, the like of which is nowhere found, re- 
ceives no explanation at their hands going to 
show that it is not of so extraordinary a character 
as to justify the belief of supernatural preserva- 
tion by a special providence? There can be but 
one answer. I claim that this point is forever 
settled upon the principles of common law. 

In several passages of these books, God him- 
self is represented as appealing to prophecy in 
proof of his own revealed truth. This challenge 
is an example: “Produce your cause, saith the 
Lord ; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the 


* No minister’s library is as well furnished as it should be, 
without this admirable volume. 


REVEALED TRUTH. 79 


King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and 
show us what shall happen: let them show the 
former things, what they be, that we may con- 
sider them, and know the latter end of them; or 
declare us things for to come. Show the things 
that are to come hereafter, that we may know 
foaeye are gods. -Is..41 ; 21,/22... Now 11; God 
ever consented to reason with his intelligent but 
fallen creatures, to overcome their fears, remove 
their doubts, and win their confidence, and if no 
absurdity is involved, how natural is this appeal P 
How well adapted to prove, beyond all peradven- 
ture, the fact of a divine revelation? No one 
needs even a word to convince him that prediction 
of future certainties is alone within the power of 
Omniscience ; for if the wisest of men cannot assur- 
edly tell on one day what shall take place on the 
next, of all the contingencies that may turn up, how 
much less able are they to show what shall occur 
beyond or within a hundred years, or even one? 
A prophecy, therefore, locating its own fulfil- 
ment hundreds of years ahead, or even one, must 
undeniably be, by the evidence of fulfilment, the 
utterance of God; and is a standing miracle on 
the page of history, open to the inspection of all 
men. Whilst it say be said of miracles. per- 
formed eighteen hundred years ago, that they are 
passed away and gone, and were to those that 
saw them in the first age of our era sensible 
proofs of revealed truth, it #us¢ be said of an old 
prophecy, whose fulfilment has passed into his- 
tory, that it is thenceforth an omnipresent miracle 
to all intelligent minds in the world acquainted 


80 VEDDER LECTURES. 


with the record. Infidelity cannot deny it. Let 
us adduce just two examples: the predictions of 
the Pentateuch, compared with the present state 
of the Jews; and of Ezekiel, compared with the 
present state of Egypt. With regard to the 
Jews, their dispersion is in accordance with the 
prediction of Moses. (Deut. chs. 28-30.) Egypt 
was, perhaps, the very oldest, as it was the mighti- 
est kingdom of the earth, long before the Jewish 
nation had an existence. The pyramids of Egypt 
are the monuments of its primitive greatness, and 
all history has borne, down to the present time, the 
varied record of its prolonged renown. Its civiliza- 
tion was the oldest, its line of kings the longest, its 
learning the greatest, its resources the richest, its 
population the largest, its territory the most pro- 
ductive, and its influence the most commanding 
of all the nations of antiquity ; and yet in the face 
of this combination of apparently exhaustless 
strength and power and influence, the voice of 
prophecy was lifted up against Egypt, and thus 
it was written nearly six hundred years before 
Christ: “It shall be the basest of the kingdoms ; 
neither shall it exalt itself any more above the 
nations.” Ezek. 29:15. “I will make the land 
waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of 
strangers: I the Lord have spoken it. There 
shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.” 
Ezek. 30: 12,13. The whole of this prophecy is 
very long and very minute, occupying four chap- 
ters, and the fulfilment was very remarkable. 
Egypt retained her greatness more than two hun- 
dred years after the prophecy had been uttered. 


REVEALED TRUTH. SI 


Three hundred and fifty years before Christ, the 
Persians subdued Egypt. Again it passed into 
the hands of other masters, and “was governed 
by the Ptolemies for the space of two hundred 
and ninety-four years, until, about thirty years 
before Christ, it became a province of the Roman 
empire.” To this day it has continued in its fluc- 
tuating fortunes “the basest of the kingdoms ;” 
and nothing is more wonderful than the accurate 
fulfilment of this prophecy, whose verification is 
still clearly manifest under the rule of the Turk. 
All we have to do, then, is to fix the respective 
dates of a prophecy and its fulfilment in corre- 
sponding historical facts to complete an unan- 
swerable argument. The process is a short one, 
and as conclusive as it is short. I need not stop 
to prove that in Old Testament history are found 
a number of predictions, great in age and variety, 
and minutely descriptive, all uttered by men pro- 
fessing themselves to be inspired of God. To 
show their honesty and confidence, they unhesi- 
tatingly appeal to the fulfilment of their predic- 
tions in the events spoken of, which should justify 
their extraordinary claims. Thus every thing was 
put out of their own hands, and referred to the 
decisions of supreme power. Nothing could be 
fairer, and although for the world at large it 
might take a long time to reach the fulness of 
proof, yet when reached it should be all the more 
powerful. These prophecies pertain to a great 
variety of things, some of them to events declared 
as sure to take place hundreds of years after the 
utterance of them. For example, there are cer- 


82 VEDDER LECTURES. 


tain predictions respecting the ancient and once 
magnificent city of Nineveh, in the book of Na- 
hum, pronounced more than seven hundred years 
before Christ, and containing remarkable specifi- 
cations as to the method of its destruction, which 
occurred after a lapse of one hundred and fifteen 
years from the time of their publication. Several 
historians give an account of its downfall, and the 
manner of it tallies exactly with the prophecy. 
The same is true of Tyre, the ancient emporium 
of the world. Isaiah announced its downfall in 
remarkable language, specifying such particulars 
as these: “J will cause many nations to come up 
against thee, as the sea causeth her waves to come 
up, and they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and 
break down her towers; I will Scrape her dust 
from her, and make her like the {Op -oltayrockn: 
“All they that know thee among the people shall 
be astonished at thee; thou shalt bea terror, and 
never shalt thou be any more.” When these pre- 
dictions were uttered, Tyre was in the full blaze 
of her glory, and so continued for at least one 
hundred and thirty years before the calamity 
came; and when it did come, these and other 
particulars contained in the prophecy became 
literal facts. 

There are also numerous prophecies respect- 
ing the various fortunes of the Jewish people ; 
prophecies declaring the birth and achievements 
of Cyrus, calling him by this name long before 
- he was born; prophecies respecting the char- 
acter and conduct of Alexander; prophecies 
of the destruction of Jerusalem and the disper- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 83 


sion of the Jews, with many others too numer- 
ous to mention and too minute for transcription 
here, whose descriptive phraseology will never 
admit of the supposition that they were fortunate 
guesses of the men who uttered them, and who 
staked their own character for veracity and piety 
upon the events that should occur in the history of 
the world long after themselves should be dead. It 
surely appears that God had a wonderful purpose 
to accomplish by a late fulfilment of early proph- 
ecy, in reserving for modern times the strong- 
est argument for the reality of revealed truth to 
be unfolded in the riper ages of the world. We 
are in a condition with regard to historic devel- 
opment, and live in an age late enough to test 
these old prophets by their own criteria fur- 
nished for that purpose. We are fully prepared 
to prove that the events thus predicted in early 
ages so precisely correspond to the predictions as 
to time, place, circumstance, and personality, that 
no room is left for doubt as to this correspond- 
ence. For example: Expressly at the time fixed 
by the prophecy the Jews were carried by 
Nebuchadnezzar captive into Babylon, and re- 
mained in bondage during the predicted time of 
seventy years. Expressly at the time fixed by the 
prophecy Cyrus was born, was named, did per- 
form the achievements predicted of him, and did 
rescue the Jews from the Babylonish yoke. Ex- 
pressly at the time fixed by the prophecy Alex- 
ander the Great ascended the throne of Greece, 
conquered Persia and all the East, and visited the 
Temple of Jerusalem. Expressly at the time 


84. VEDDER LECTURES. 


fixed by the prophecy Jesus of Nazareth, the pre- 
dicted Messiah, appeared, laid the foundation of 
Christianity and suffered the death of the cross. 
Expressly at the time fixed by the prophecy Jeru- 
salem was destroyed by the Roman armies, and 
not one stone of the Temple left on another. Pre- 
cisely according to prophecy the Jews, subse- 
quent to this event, were scattered over all the 
earth, and were commingled, though not mixed, 
with all sorts of people, doomed to persecution 
and oppression in all lands, a hissing and a by- 
word among all nations. And as it was pre- 
dicted that they should be kept a distinct people 
in their state of dispersion until regathered in 
their own land, so they have to this hour con- 
tinued, for eighteen hundred years, a distinct 
people; just as much separated from Gentiles as 
they ever were; retaining their own laws, cus- 
toms, and synagogue worship as they had them 
when they were driven out of their land by the 
punitive hand of God for their unparalleled iniq- 
uity. There never was such a preservation of a 
world-wide scattered people, yet remaining close- 
ly bound together, without a country, without a 
government, without any political bond of union, 
and resisting every thing like tendency to separ- 
ation or absorption. They are the only nation 
on earth existing in solution, as no other ever did, 
whose nationality is as sharply defined and as dis- 
tinctively preserved as it ever was. Wherever a 
Gentile sees a Jew, he sees a living, walking 
argument for the truth of the religion of Christ. 
At the risk of prolixity, however, I shall 
briefly dispose of this argument of guesswork. 


REVEALED TRUTH. 85 


Infidels say that the prophets were impostors, 
and chance rules the world. Well, “suppose that 
there had been only ¢ez men in ancient times who 
pretended to be prophets, each of whom exhibited 
only jive independent criteria as to place, govern- 
ment, concomitant events, doctrine taught, charac- 
ter, sufferings, death, the meeting of all which in 
one person should prove the reality of their call- 
ing as prophets, and of his mission in the charac- 
ter they have assigned him; suppose, moreover, 
that all events were left to chance merely, and we 
were to compute, from the principle employed by 
mathematicians in the investigation of such sub- 
jects, the probability of these f/ty independent cir- 
cumstances happening a¢ a//. Assume that there 
is, according to the technical phrase, an egual chance 
for the happening or the failure of any one of the 
specified particulars; then the probability agadnst 
the occurrence of all the particulars in any way, 
is that of the fiftieth power of two to unity ; that 
is, the probability is greater than 1,125,000,000,- 
000,000 to I; or greater than eleven hundred and 
twenty-five mttlions of millions to one, that all these 
circumstances do not turn up, even at distant periods. 
This computation, however, is independent of the 
consideration of ¢zme. Let it then be recollected 
that if any one of the specified circumstances hap- 
pen, it may be the day after the delivery of the 
prophecy, or at any period from that time to 
the end of the world, this will so indefinitely aug- 
ment the probability against the contemporaneous 
occurrence of merely these fifty circumstances, 
that it surpasses the power of numbers to express 


86 VEDDER LECTURES. 


the immense improbability of its taking place at 
all; how much greater the improbability when all 
events are under the control of a Being who con- 
trols all things and hates imposture ?” * Accord- 
ing, then, to the infidel argument, the tex impos- 
tors could not have established their claim at all, 
whether there be a God or not; but if a far 
greater number, with far more numerous crite- 
ria, all prophecy of the Messiahship of Christ, and 


all their predictions be demonstrably fulfilled in: 


corresponding events, then these things will be 
fully established :—the existence of God, the fact 
of his general and special providence, and the ab- 
solute certainty of revealed truth. These are to 
be determined by well-established facts, to some 
of which let us pay attention. 

_ The prophecy of Daniel relating to the first ad- 
vent of Christ declares the time of it to be four 
hundred and ninety years from the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem. Now, any one can see that there were 
as many chances against an accidental fulfilment as 
there were other periods of time beside that fixed 
in the prophecy for the Saviour’s birth ; but he ac- 
tually came at the very time set by the prediction. 
Prophecies relating to the same event announce 
the country and the town in the country in which 
he should be born. This again swells the chances 
against an accidental fulfilment by the number 
of all the towns in the country, and of all the 
countries in the world where a great deliverer 
might possibly be born. Again, all these towns 


* Gregory’s Letters. 


‘ 
—-—— ow © 


a 


REVEALED TRUTH. 87 


and countries must be multiplied by all the periods 
of time besides that in which Christ appeared, in 
order to get at the number of chances against an 
accidental fulfilment of the prediction. Very 
early in Old Testament history it was foretold 
not only that the promised deliverer should de- 
scend from the first parents of the race, but that 
he should be of the seed of Abraham. This in- 
creased the chances against an accidental fulfil- 
ment by all the men in the world contemporary 
with Abraham, from whom this deliverer might 
possibly come. As time rolled on the prophecy 
was limited to Isaac, excluding the other children 
of Abraham ; then it was limited to Jacob, exclud- 
ing the other children of Isaac; then again it 
was limited to Judah, excluding the other chil- 
dren of Jacob; then it was limited again to the 
family of David, excluding all other families in 
the tribe of Judah; then again it was limited to 
Solomon, excluding the other children of David ; 
then again it was limited to Mary, excluding all 
other contemporary virgins of the line of Solomon. 
Now, with each of these limitations, a large num- 


ber of chances against an accidental fulfilment 


was connected, and all these numbers must be 
made, in turn, multipliers to preceding amounts 
increased by each; so that the progression of 
chances against an accidental fulfilment with the 
lapse of time becomes absolutely incalculable. 
Failure in any one particular would have ruined 


_the prophecy; but amid billions of chances for 


failure, the family records of the tribes of Israel, 
which they were obliged to keep by statute, prove, 


88 VEDDER LECTURES. 


to the confusion of the Jew and the infidel, that the 
prophecy came out exactly right, according to all 
its limitations, at the end of four thousand years! 
What now becomes of the argument for guess- 
work? Will any one, in the face of these facts, 
have the courage to plead it? 

But this is not all. The very peculiar circum- 
stances of life inwhich Christ should appear were 
also foretold long before his advent, some by one 
prophet, others by another, and so on in different 
periods of the age of revelation. Though de- 
scended from a king, this deliverer, according to 
prophecy, was to be “despised and rejected of 
men ;” though of unparalleled majesty, he was to 
be of “a meek and lowly spirit ;” though of no 
repute among men, he was to work miracles in 
giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, 
succor to the afflicted, comfort to the poor ; 
though immaculately innocent, he was to be 
“numbered with transgressors.” Then he was 
to be put to a cruel death, the exact form of which 
was foretold; his hands and feet were to be 
pierced, but none of his bones broken. His gar- 
ments were to be distributed, his enemies to utter 
reproaches and taunts; they were to give him 
vinegar to drink. The very words he should 
utter upon the cross were recorded hundreds of 
years before he was born, the manner of his 
burial as well, and the success that should attend 
his cause through all subsequent time. These 
circumstances in the history of Christ, according 
to the tenor of human affairs, were most unlikely 
to occur to one of the royal house of David, who 


REVEALED TRUTH. 89 


was to be a great deliverer. I might take up each 
and show how unlikely it was to happen, because 
so seemingly in conflict with the natural course 
of things when viewed in the light of attending 
circumstances. Thus, for example, the prophecy 
says, ‘‘ They appointed him his grave with the wick- 
ed, yet was he with the rich in his death.” Is. 53: 
g. (Heb.) Answering thereto, it was a fact that 
though Jesus was crucified between two thieves, 
he was not buried with them, as intended by the 
Jewish rulers, but was the first that was laid in a 
new and costly tomb of a rich man. Matt. 27: 60. 
How unlikely was this! yet it was brought about in 
the sovereignty of God by the most natural means, 
and with the utmost freedom of human action. 
These facts, accurately recorded, were never con- 
tradicted by early enemies, who most felt the 
necessity of proving them false, had such a thing 
been possible. 

Now, the hastiest review will show us ata glance 
that the history of Christ was pre-written by sev- 
eral persons, who lived at long intervals of time 
during the age of revelation, each contributing a 
little ; but no two of them, in the nature of the case, 
could have had any intercourse with, or knowl- 
edge of each other. This age was a little more 
than four thousand years, but the time of wr7ting 
was Only about three-eighths of the period. The 
contributors to the Old Testament were men dif- 
fering widely in ability, education, and social life. 
Thus, Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians ; David and Solomon were kings ; Dan- 
iel was a minister of state; Ezra, Jeremiah, and 


gO VEDDER LECTURES. 


Ezekiel were priests; Amos was a herdsman. 
David wrote some four hundred years after 
Moses, Isaiah about two hundred and fifty years 
after David; Daniel about one hundred and fifty 
years after Isaiah ; Ezekiel about one hundred years 
after Daniel; and Malachi about two hundred 
years after Ezekiel. Between Moses and John there 
was an interval of more than fifteen hundred 
years, during which the whole of revelation was 
made. 

All the books of these authors were writ- 
ten amid the strangest diversity of time, place, 
and condition; and in different forms of history, 
biography, laconics, poems, and prophecy ; yet 
there is an evident unity of design pervading the 
whole, which proves a unity of origin in some 
source not wzthin the minds of the authors, but 
without ; and so controlling each as to bring each 
man’s thoughts to crystallize around the same 
thread extended through all these centuries, 
and especially with regard to Messiah, the Hope 
of Israel. How is all this to be explained? Shall 
we say, it may be accounted for by the infidel’s 
suggestion that the Old Testament was forged to 
give credibility to the New? This is not only 
absurd in itself, but plainly impossible by the fact 
that the Old Testament was translated into Greek 
nearly three hundred years before the birth of 
Christ, in which the titles above referred to are 
all recorded, and when brought together make an 
anticipated biography of him wonderfully minute 
and distinct for an outline. The supposition of 
forgery is therefore a monstrosity in foolishness. 


REVEALED TRUTH. gi 


This question then pushes itself before us: How 
could such a variety of events be predicted by 
such a variety of men living amid such a variety 
of times and places, and not one of the predictions 
fail as proved by correspondent events? There 
can be but one answer that avoids all absurdity. 
Thus we are reduced to this dilemma, Zzther the 
Christian religion ts the truth of God, or God himself 
is the author of a horrible delusion. There is no 
escape, for we have the books, and whoever will 
may search for himself. 

Now, I contend that even one such prophecy 
as that in Isaiah 53, in its fulfilment, furnishes an 
unanswerable proof to the general fact of Re- 
vealed Truth, and to the specific truth of each doc- 
trine in whose interest it was published. But 
here it may be questioned, how is the fulfilment 
of a prophecy the proof of a doctrine? [answer, 
the very object of the one is to beget confidence 
in the other. Take away this idea, and the whole 
body of prophecy becomes utterly insignificant, 
having the character of enigmas, apparently de- 
signed only for exciting the wonder of mankind ; 
but when it is considered that doctrine needs 
proof in proportion to its importance, it will be 
seen that any doctrine claiming to come directly 
from God needs proof coming in a sure way, 
and from a sure source, independent of the laws 
of nature, and mounting above the capabilities 
of man. Astronomers foretell eclipses and the 
return of comets many years in advance, and 
when they appear men are apt to wonder at such 
predictions always coming true toa moment of 


92 VEDDER LECTURES, 


time; but this is not prophecy, because the re- 
sult of scientific calculation based upon a knowl- 
edge of the mechanism of the universe. Such 
predictions are only like those of an ordinary me- 
chanic or machinist, who foretells what will come 
out of some complicate contrivance working in ac- 
cordance with previously existing laws of motion. 
How different is this from the prediction of events 
that happen without any such dependence upon 
the established laws of nature, such as the birth, 
life, and death of an individual, which may or may 
not happen at certain specified times rr Ormet hes ine 
fortunate end of a flourishing city or nation, when 
at the time of prediction all appearances and 
probabilities were against it? These things nei- 
ther man nor angel can know, because neither 
of them is omniscient. Hence it is plain that the 
fulfilment of a prophecy is proof of the doctrine 
whose truth it was designed to establish. 

Jesus Christ himself was truly held to be a 
prophet, mighty in word and deed, who proved 
his own claims by both. Of the Christian Church 
he said it should be founded upon a rock, and 
the powers of hell should not prevail against it, 
when as yet it had no distinctive existence. How 
now is this verified by the history intervening be- 
tween his time and ours? Behold! a vast conti- 
nent not then discovered, all studded with the 
monuments of its glory. Here is a vast territory, 
of the existence of which no one for a long time 
after Christ ever dreamed, all under its mighty 
influence, whence issue perennial gospel streams 
to irrigate the world. Was there ever such a won- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 93 


derful fulfilment as this! Christ also predicted, 
in reference to the loving female disciple who be- 
stowed upon him the fragrant contents of her ala- 
baster box, that wheresoever the Gospel should be 
preached in the whole world, this little act of love 
demonstrative should be told for a memorial of 
her. How is it now and here? The name of 
Mary, associated with her box of ointment, is pro- 
claimed from every pulpit. Wall infidelity tell us 
this is all a fabrication ? 

Three of the Evangelists, who wrote before the 
sacking of Jerusalem by Titus, record the won- 
derfully minute prophecy of our Lord as to the 
ways and means of its destruction; and, true 
enough, it was accurately fulfilled some forty 
years after he uttered it, and as he uttered it. I 
need only say that Josephus, who was an eye- 
witness of that appalling calamity, so describes it 
as to make his own history unwittingly the most 
valuable exposition of the prophecy. Eusebius, 
who wrote two hundred and sixty years after 
him, says of it: ‘“On comparing the declarations 
of our Saviour with the parts of the historian’s 
work, where he describes the whole war, how can 
one fail to acknowledge and wonder at the truly 
divine and extraordinary foreknowledge and pre- 
diction of our Saviour ?”—B. iii., ch. 7. | 

Now here is a multitude of historical facts, both 
of prediction and fulfilment, recorded in the book 
of Revealed Truth, as it claims to be, overlying 
the whole time from Adam to Christ, a period of 
four thousand years, all of which were designed 
and adapted to prove its claim to be a valid one. 


94 VEDDER LECTURES. 


It is just such proof as the nature of the case de- 
mands; just such proof as well comports with the 
nature of the claim set up ; just such proof as none 
but God could give; and therefore just such 
proof as none but a malignant can resist. To 
meet it with the bare assertion of forgery or guess- 
work is clearly a confession of discomfiture. From 
this general view of the subject of prophecy it 
will appear that two great ends have been unde- 
niably reached by it, namely, solid ground for ex- 
pectation defore Christ came, and solid ground for 
faith in him after he came. ; 
(1.) Prophecy afforded solid ground for expecta- 
tion to the whole nation of the Jews who waited 
for “the consolation of Israel.” It will not be de- 
nied that for some time previous to the advent 
every individual of that nation, whether at home 
or abroad, was standing on the tiptoe of expecta- 
tion with regard to it; and that, explain it as we 
may, the same feeling of expectation, though of a 
far more indefinite kind, largely pervaded the 
Gentile world. This expectation of the Messiah 
was well laid upon the divine origin and supernat- 
ural source of prophecy, the main feature of which 
was a medium between too great obscurity on the 
one hand, and too great precision on the other. 
The general impatience, however, hurried all of 
them into the mistake of overlooking prophecies 
relating to the first advent of Christ to suffer and 
die, and fixing all their heartfelt anxiety upon the 
speedy fulfilment of prophecies pertaining to his 
second advent to reign, and to advance their nation 
to the predicted dignity of which they read out of 


REVEALED TRUTH. 95 


the books of the prophets in their synagogues 
every Sabbath day. The Jewish people were not 
confined to the territory of Palestine at the time 
of the advent of Christ. N otwithstanding the per- 
mission by Cyrus to return to it after the predicted 
seventy years of captivity had ended, a large num- 
ber remained in Babylon, being about as indiffer- 
ent to the fatherland as are our Jews, who prefer 
to remain in the comfortable social condition they 
have ever enjoyed in the United States. Their 
condition in Babylon was much improved. Great 
privileges were granted them, and their colonies 
consequently became so numerous, and had been 
so well located for trade, that at the time of the 
advent there was no portion of the Roman empire 
where Jews were not found. Their religion and 
their sacred books became as widely known as 
themselves. But although Judaism was respected 
among the heathen as a religious system mainly 
for its antiquity, yet the Jews themselves were 
both hated and feared ; for the political character 
with which they imprudently as well as falsely 
invested their coming Messiah, awakened the 
suspicions of the Roman officials, and kept them 
on the lookout for insurrections. Hence, when 
Herod heard of the visit of the Magi in search of 
him who had been born king of the Jews, he was 
much excited, and all Jerusalem with him, though 
on different grounds; and sending for the chief 
priests and other dignitaries, demanded of them 
where their Messiah should be born. How could 
they tell in any other way than by reference 

to prophecy? Accordingly, they submitted to 


96 VEDDER LECTURES. | 


Herod for his own inspection, or at least recited 
to him the prophecy of Micah 5: 2, uttered seven 
hundred years before its fulfilment in their own 
day: “ But thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Ju- 
dah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, 
for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall 
rule my people Israel.” This, though substan- 
tially the same asthe Hebrew in sense, is somewhat 
different in phraseology ; the explanation is that 
the Jews loosely quoted the Greek version to 
which I have already alluded, and probably had 
a copy with them out of which the king could 
read for himself. Thus, by their own showing, 
and at the expiration of the time appointed, as 
they believed, the Messiah came, “made of a 
woman, made under the law, to redeem them that 
are under the law, that we might receive the adop- 
tion of sons.” This, however, for the reason above 
given, was not the faith of the Jews. The whole 
nation had long been misled by the false glosses 
of their teachers, and this explains the fact that 
when “he came to his own, his own received 
him not.” Their expectation as to the ¢zme met 
with no disappointment ; but with respect to the 
object and manner of his coming, his character 
- and his work, their great mistake was a fatal be- 
cause a careless one, as above indicated. 

(2.) Prophecy afforded solid ground for faith 
in the Messiah after he came. In proof of this 
I have only to refer to the occasion when John 
the Baptist sent messengers from the place of his 
imprisonment to Him, saying: “ Art thou he who 
should come, or do we look for another?’’ Christ 


REVEALED TRUTH. 97 


returned the answer: “Go and show John again 
those things which ye do hear and see: the blind 
receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers 
are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are 
raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached 
to them.” Reference was had to the acknowl- 
edged predicted work of the Messiah, by the per- 
formance of which he was to be known when he 
came. John had previously borne witness to him 
as the antitype of the Jewish piacular sacrifice, 
“the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the 
world ;” and now he was substantially told to base 
his confidence upon the evidence of his own dis- 
ciples, spread out before their eyes as the creden- 
tials of the Messiah specified in prophecy. To 
this evidence Christ often referred all cavillers 
whose prejudices proved that they could be satis- 
fied with no amount of evidence, because their 
ambitious views and carnal expectations were 
disappointed. For reasons not now necessary to 
specify, he never formally declared himself in 
public, as he did in private to the Samaritan 
woman. He preferred to let the point of Messiah- 
ship be first settled in the convictions of men 
forced to the conclusion by seeing the works 
wrought by his own hand, which the prophecy 
said should prove his wonderful character. How 
eminently wise was this, and how well calculated 
to carry conviction to honest minds,—‘ What 
manner of man is this, that even the winds and 
the sea obey him!” Previously none had ever 
claimed the august character of “Shiloh;” but 
in agreement with the prediction of Jesus, many, 


98 VEDDER LECTURES. 


subsequent to his ascension, taking advantage of 
the national expectation, set up the claim without 
justifying it in any way; and crowds who refused 
Christ, though well attested, madly ran after these 
impostors and miserably perished. 

II. MrrAcLES.—Whatisa miracle? It isa work 
performed by divine power counteracting the 
laws of nature in attestation of the fact and truth 
of revelation. Infidels, from the days of Hume 
down to the present, depending upon his often- 
refuted argument about experience, retail it as if 
original with each of themselves; and think they 
have made a successful stand in the assertion that 
‘‘a miracle is an impossibility.” But opposite as- 
sertions are equally good or equally bad in the line 
-of any debate; and as in all others, so in this, the 
use of an old exploded argument is only the evi- 
dence of ignorance or weakness upon the part of 
him who ventures to use it as fresh and available 
material. They all unite in saying what is not true, 
namely, that the laws of nature are invariable ; they 
never change; consequently miracles can never 
occur: but this is assuming the very thing to be 
proved. By the testimony of an eminent physiolo- 
gist, BICHAT, the laws of vitality do change, being 
variable in their influences and uncertain in their 
results. Thus he says, in his “Introduction to his 
General Anatomy,” p. 21: “The vital properties 
are at every instant undergoing some change in 
degree and kind; they are scarcely ever the same.” 
Again he says: “ They are subject toa number of 
varieties ; they frequently baffle all calculation, and 
would require as many formulz as the cases which 


PL 


REVEALED TRUTH. 99 


occur. In their phenomena nothing can be fore- 
seen, foretold, or calculated; we judge of them 
only by their analogies, and these are, in the vast 
proportion of instances, extremely uncertain.” 
But the laws of vitality de/ong to the laws of na- 
ture. What then becomes of the infidel’s assertion 
that the laws of nature never change? Perhaps 
now he will say the physzcal laws of matter never 
change. But here again he is begging the ques- 
tion. The laws of matter are not definable prin- 
ciples, but general facts of observation, by which 
we perceive that one thing always follows another, 
as cause and effect. Who does not know of the 
wonderful and inexplicable variety of atmospheric 
phenomena? When we speak of showers, we re- 
fer generally to showers of rain; but there are 
well-established facts of showers of stones, some 
out of clouds, and some when no clouds were to 
be seen; showers of dust, and showers of red infu- 
soria, which in early times were called showers of 
blood. Rain is generally “dmpid, and snow is 
white, but there are instances on record of black 
rain and /uminous rain; of black snow and red snow. 
Rain generally falls from clouds, but there are 
well-attested instances on record where copious 
showers have fallen without any clouds to be seen, 
but stars instead, in their usual appearance, shin- 
ing brightly. Snow, when it falls, is of the same 
appearance; but its crystals vary in shape, with 
consecutive showers in the same day, it may be, 
from eight to ten varieties of form. Lightning is 
generally seen as zigzag or sheet lightning; but 
sometimes it is ardorescent, taking the form of a tree 


100 VEDDER LECTURES. 


with its branches. Be sure, for some of these won- 
ders explanations are offered, because there is no 
such thing as denying facts; but they are for the 
most part conjectural and unsatisfactory, as well as 
partial. Now we may ask, Do these phenomena 
apparently sustain, or apparently contradict the 
assertion that the laws of nature are always con- 
stant, regular, and unchangeable? Any one can 
decide for himself. Disbelief, then, founded on 
circumscribed experience, is both fallacious and 
absurd. 

But, for the sake of argument, let us allow 
“that things contrary to experience ought not 
to be believed.” What then? Why, according 
to this position, revealed truth, and Christianity, 
founded upon it, must be received as heaven’s 
greatest boon; for example: 

1. Jt ts contrary to all known experience that men 
of low grade and of no culture can naturally pro- 
duce literary works that shall outlive all cotempo- 
rary productions on ordinary subjects of discus- 
sion; but such have been the living works of the 
various writers, both of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, not on ordinary but on extraordinary sub- 
jects; therefore the assertions of infidels concern- 
ing them cannot consistently be believed. 


2. It is contrary to all known experience that a re- | 


cord of facts and principles having abundance of 
proof to sustain it—such as is accepted in civil 
courts—should ever be regarded as false; but 
such is the record of revealed truth; therefore 
the assertions of infidels respecting it cannot con- 
sistently be believed. 


er ee Le ee eer oe ee ee ee oe 


REVEALED TRUTH. IOI 


3. Lt ts contrary to all known experience that bad 
men should go about the world to reform Jad 
men; but infidels say that the apostles were bad 
men; therefore their assertions are not to be be- 
lieved. 

4. It 1s contrary to all known experience that good 
men should go about the world practising decep- 
tion to make good men; but infidels say that in 
their performances, called miracles, the apostles 
practised deception, while it is undeniable they 
taught the purest moral and religious sentiment ; 
therefore the assertions of infidels respecting them 
are not to be believed. 

5. Lf 1s contrary to all known experience that men 
should ever lay down their lives in attestation of 
a false fact; but the apostles laid down their lives 
in attestation of the resurrection of their Master 
from the dead; therefore the allegations of infidels 
against the doctrine of the resurrection are not to 
be believed. 

6. Lt ts contrary to all known experience that the 
religion of a whole nation, and that the largest in 
the world, should ever be overturned by the 
preaching of lies by a few ignorant men; but the 
religion of the Roman empire was overturned 


by the preaching of the primitive converts to 


Christ; therefore the assertions of infidelity are 
absurd and not to be believed. 

7. ft ts contrary to all known experience that 
counterfeits should be ever issued of that which 
never had an existence; but counterfeit szracles 
have always been more or less thrust upon the 
attention and acceptance of men as genuine; there- 


102 VEDDER LECTURES. 


fore genuine miracles have been performed; and 
‘the assertions of infidels, contrary to their own 
boasted axiom, and against a vast amount of testi- 
mony, both of enemies and friends, cannot con- 
sistently be believed. Thus, dy ¢heer own showing, 
revealed truth, and the Christian religion founded 
upon it, should be accepted as the hope of the 
world. : 

Nicodemus, who was a master in Israel, and 
well acquainted with the evidence by which the 
presence of the Messiah should be known, was so 
impressed that he came to Christ with this lan- 
guage upon his lips: “ Rabbi, we know that thou 
art a teacher come from God, for no man can do 
these miracles that thou doest, except God be 
with him.” These miracles to which he referred, 
Christ himself on several occasions called “the 
works of God,” and such was the belief of this 
Jewish Rabbi not only, butof many other con- 
siderate men whom his personal pronoun included. 
But what kind of works were they? Nothing can 
move without the concurrence of divine power, 
and in this sense all things are of God. Were 
they then such works as enlisted the co-opera- 
tion of men? No; for in that case they could not 
have proved any thing in behalf of the character 
which some had inferred from them. Were they 
‘such works as left it inferrible that they were 
wrought by superior, but still human skill, to 
which ordinary men were incompetent? No; for 
in that case the discovery would have been fatal 
to the claim they were designed to sustain. 
They were such as no created being could of 


REVEALED TRUTH. 103 


himself perform, and necessarily so; because when 
God sends special messengers to men, if he ever 
do, he must verify the fact by such credentials 
as shall compel acceptance; and these, in the 
nature of the case, must be the performance of 
works 2x the sight of men suchas none but God 
can do. 

To illustrate this point, let us go back to Old 
Testament history. Moses was a divinely com- 
missioned messenger sent to Pharaoh, king of 
' Egypt. He appeared before the haughty mon- 
arch with this extraordinary information: “The 
God of the Hebrews hath sent me to thee, O 
Pharaoh, to demand the release of his people from 
that severe bondage in which thou hast enthrall- 
edthem.” The tyrant was superstitious, and from 
the boldness of the stranger probably thought it 
best to be cautious. Instead of seizing Moses and 
his more eloquent brother, and treating them with 
that indignity or violence which might have been 
expected from such a man, he thought proper to 
say in the outset something that might, as he 
would naturally think, quench their ardor. “If 
thou art a commissioner from heaven, give me 
some proof of thy authority.”” This wasa reason- 
able requirement, and no sooner said than done. 
Aaron threw down his rod upon the ground, and 
it became a serpent. This was sufficiently start- 
ling, and reduced the king to a commendable 
degree of meekness; but not trusting to his own 
bewildered wits, while anxious to discover whether 
this astonishing transformation was really an evi- 
dence of divine authority or the effect of magic, to 


104. VEDDER LECTURES. 


which he was superstitiously devoted, he speedily 
sent for his own trusted magicians, commanding 
them to attempt the same experiment. Without 
hesitancy they had to obey, though reluctant, from 
the knowledge that this was an original phenome- 
non, wholly baffling their skill. They threw down 
their rods, which, to their great astonishment, in 
like manner became serpents; but Aaron’s rod 
swallowed up their rods before it regained its 
normal condition! This was ominous, and doubt- 
less intimated to them the hoplessness of the con- 
test into which they had been forced. But the 
effect was to relieve the mind of Pharaoh, and 
settled him in the belief that Moses and Aaron 
were expert magicians, who sought to make use of 
their art to frighten him into the indiscretion of 
liberating a people whom he was most anxious to 


retain; and he may be supposed to have dismissed | 


them, with the intimation that he was quite too 
smart for them in this particular. At various times 
these men of God appeared before his majesty, 
making the same demand, with like results. They 
converted the water of the Nile into blood, so did 
the magicians; they produced a prodigious num- 
ber of frogs, so did the magicians; they perform- 
ed seven other miracles, no more difficult than the 
former; so did Nor the magicians; and therefore 
they informed their king that such marvellous 
things were beyond the artifice of human skill, and 
could only be done by divine power. They there- 
fore gave their opinion in favor of the divine 
legation of Moses and his brother. This was the 
end to be gained in showing Pharaoh to be with- 


Se ee, ee a Sen ee 


ea 


REVEALED TRUTH. 105 


out excuse, and to have taken the initiative in 
hardening his own heart. 

As this is one of the difficult passages of Scrip- 
ture, so called, it may not be amiss to attempt re- 
moving that absurdity which has been affixed to 
it by infidels, and the ridicule that has been drawn 
out by inadequate exposition. The first question 
here is this: Were the miracles of Moses and 
Aaron and those of the Egyptians of the same 
kind, or were the former genuine, while the latter 
were the effects of magic or the devil? The his- 
tory is so plain upon the subject, that without any 
reasonable doubt they were all alike genuine, all 
alike the product of divine power. To maintain 
that the miracles of these servants of God were 
true, and those of the magicians false, all alike 
being designated in the narrative as real miracles 
without a hint to the contrary, is to throw the 
greatest advantage into the hands of the infidel, 
who finds in the Old Testament, as he thinks, an 
arsenal of weapons for swift destruction to the 
claims of Revealed Truth. It is to say that the 
character of the men determined the character of 
the miracles, and not God. It is to say that the 
magicians, by a mysterious influence of their art 
over the air, light, and organs of vision, deceived 
Pharaoh and the Egyptians, making them believe 
that they saw things which did not exist; it is to 
say, with the same breath, that they wrought no 
real miracle, and that they produced what was 
equal to the greatest of them; for it may be con- 
fidently referred to any man of common under- 
standing, if a greater miracle could be supposed 


106 . VEDDER LECTURES. 


than to convince the king and the whole nation of 
the Egyptians that they saw rods changed into 
serpents, water turned into blood, frogs covering 
the land, when no such thing took place; for all 
this was done by the magicians as well as by 
Moses. Such a supposition, if not regarded as 
absurd, must at least be seen to be dangerous to 
biblical exegesis; for an infidel wants nothing 
more to secure a triumph. He would argue, and 
that correctly, that if the magicians could so thor- 
oughly deceive the king and the whole nation, 
why might not Moses also deceive them, since we 
are informed that he was skilled in all the learning 
of the Egyptians? The consequence of this would 
be that no respect is due to the testimony of our 
senses, and that every degree of evidence founded 
upon them may be disregarded as unreliable, be- 
cause of this possibility of deception. Hence it 
can never be proved that any miracle was ever 
performed, because the appropriate source of all 
certain proof in the behalf of miracles is dried up 
forever. Such is the consequence of abandoning 
the plain words of Scripture and the laws of lan- 
guage to answer the demands of human opinion. 
Nothing, in my judgment, can be plainer than 
this, that the power by which these magicians did 
the same things done by Moses was the power of 
God, and for this plain reason, that their acts, no 
less than his, were creative acts, and therefore 
could not have been accomplished by the art of 
man or by the agency of the devil. Toturna rod 
into a living, crawling serpent, to give animal life 
to a dead substance that had been deprived of 


= 2 ——. 


REVEALED TRUTH. 107 


another kind natural to it, namely, vegetable life, 
was a creative act, which none but God could do; 
to convert the waters of a kingdom into blood, 
and to call a vast multitude of full-grown frogs 
into existence and activity in one night, are deeds 
which required no less a power than that which 
made the world. Works of creation come not 
within the power of man, angel, or devil; for if 
ever such could be the case, a creature would be- 
come a creator, and one of the strongest proofs of 
the existence of a personal God would be blotted 
out forever. The contrary opinion, assigning the 
miracles of the magicians to the agency of the 
devil, is indefensible, not only because it gives 
an inalienable attribute of the Almighty to the 
devil, but for another reason. If the magicians 
worked by the energy of Satan, it is perfectly evi- 
dent that when they gave up the contest, saying 
that they could not imitate any of the other seven 
miracles performed by Moses and Aaron, they 
were mistaken, for surely it was no easier to make 
frogs than locusts; it was no easier to convert a 
dead rod into a living serpent, than to convert 
dead dust into living lice: the power was substan- 
tially the same in both cases, because the result 
was the same in kind. This opinion must there- 
fore be abandoned, because it is at war with com- 
mon-sense, and is fatal to the truth of the whole 
story, making the reason given by the magicians 
for their discontinuance evidently and stupidly 
false, and unlikely to have been presented at all, 
because of previous successes in works of no less 
difficulty. 


108 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Another question just here is suggested. What 
good reason can be given why God should not 
only allow, but enable the magicians of Pharaoh 
to work real miracles in opposition to his own ser- 
vants? I reply, the best in the world. By means 
of the success of his magicians, Pharaoh reassured 
himself, and was the cause of hardening his own 
heart on the occasion furnished by God for that 
purpose; so that the cruel tyrant should be pun- 
ished for his crimes through his own agency. 
Besides, the attempted performances of the magi- 
clans were not impositions by their own con- 
trivance, but were divinely made true miracles, 
apparently opposed, but really in aid of the ser- 
vants of God. These magicians were the privy 
councillors of the king, to whose united wisdom 
he was accustomed to defer. God gave them 
power, amazing to themselves, to work three mira- 
cles in succession, as fast as Aaron did, but denied 
them the power to work another one in imitation 
of any of the seven subsequently wrought, neither 
of which was of more difficult execution. There 
was no apparent reason why they should not con- 
tinue to be successful. Their trial and failure, in 
this view of matters, showed them that their pre- 
vious success was not attributable to their own 
art, but to a higher power; hence their declara- 
tion to Pharaoh, that these miracles were wrought 
by the hand of God. Pharaoh therefore had the 
united evidence of those to whose decision he had 
committed this case, and therefore was bound to 
respect the demand of Moses and Aaron, as of 
divine authority. If the magicians had not suc- 


hes 
tie 


© eee ee ee” ee ad 


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if 
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REVEALED TRUTH. 109 


ceeded at all, they could not have explained the 
matter any more or better than Pharaoh; but by 
working three of the miracles, the like of which 
they were conscious they never did before, and 
which they well knew was not in consequence of 
any power within their art, because the other seven 
were no harder to perform than the first three, 
they spoke from experience, and not from mere 
opinion, in their advice to the king. Siding with 
him in the first instance, they were at length made 
to feel that they were all in the wrong, and in 
danger, too, unless they turned over to the side of 
Moses. As his councillors they therefore made 
known their convictions to the king, who, in his 
obstinacy, was thus left without excuse. 

This interesting narrative shows us that God 
himself established in early history this fact, that 
he sent and should send chosen men as messen- 
gers to men to declare his will; and set forth — 
that the working of miracles should be their cre- 
dentials, furnished by himself in testimony of the 
fact, and of the right divinely invested in them to 
proclaim Revealed Truth. Ex. 4:6-9. The evi- 
dence of a divine mission must be made clear to 
the senses of men, and in no other way, before it 
can be accepted. It is the “votce of the sign,” 
which is divine. The nature of the proof must 
correspond to the nature of theclaim. As it can- 
not be shown that a divine mission of a man to 
men is an impossibility, it cannot be shown that 
the evidence of such mission is incompatible with 
the nature of things. Hence, during the continu- 
ance of such extraordinary missions as we find 


I1O VEDDER LECTURES. 


spoken of throughout the Old Testament, we look 
not in vain for the evidence divinely given to 
secure human confidence in them. Miracles 
therefore were not new phenomena in the world, 
when the antitype of Moses appeared to con- 
vince men by “the works of God” of his own 
divine mission. 

Thus I return to the question—What kind of 
works did Christ perform which brought a Jewish 
Rabbi to the conviction that ‘ God was with him” ? 
How do they compare with those of Moses? A 
glance should satisfy all men, as it satisfies us, 
that while some were equal and others immeasur- 
ably superior, all were far beyond them in this 
respect, that Moses as the servant performed in 
the name and by the authority of Jehovah; while 
Christ as the Son of God wrought his works in his 
own name and by his own authority, and directed 
others so to do. Moses was powerless without 
the rod of God in his hand, Christ was powerful 
because God was in him. His works were there- 
fore “the works of God,” and no one can deny it, 
because they fall within classes, all necessarily ex- 
cluding every other agency. They are: 

1. Works of creation, such as turning water 
into wine by the mere act of willing it; and mul- 
tiplying a few loaves and fishes into a quantity of 
provision adequate to feed many thousands, with 
a surplus of fragments left greatly exceeding the 
original supply. 

2. Works of mercy, such as curing organic de- 
fects, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the 
deaf, power of limbs to the lame, and perfect 


REVEALED TRUTH. III 


health to those afflicted with diseases incurable 
by human means. 

3. Works of control over the spirit-world, as in 
the expulsion of demons from those possessed by 
them. 

4. Works of omnipotence, such as allaying the 
winds ; bringing the tossing waves of a sea to an 
instant calm by a word of command : bringing its 
fishes in a great multitude instantly within nets 
that had been set for them a whole night without 
success ; withering a fig-tree from the roots by a 
word; walking on the waves of the sea, and rais- 
ing the dead. I need specify no others. 

That these, if ever performed, were “ the works 
of God,” no believer in the divine existence will 
deny. The only question is, Were they actually 
done? If so, then the claims of Christ in all their 
extent are indubitably true, and Revealed Truth 
is a stupendous fact. How then shall these mir- 
acles be verified? By what way can we prove 
their reality ? Clearly in no other way than the 
common one by which all other facts are proven. 
They are so wonderful in their nature and effects 
that confessedly mere human power is not com- 
petent to execute any one of them; and there- 
fore they were the only proof that could be suit- 
able for the verification of claims so extraordinary 
as those set up by and in the behalf of Jesus of 
Nazareth. These miracles are abundantly proved 
to have been wrought by him day after day, for 
the space of three years, in the midst of multi- 
tudes; and the fame of them spread all over the 
country of the Jews and far beyond, by the re- 


112 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ports of all kinds of men who had witnessed them, 
enemies as well as friends ; and these reports were 
uniform in one remarkable respect, that they 
were such works as none but God could do. Even 
the malice of enemies admitted their performance 
by superhuman power, though they decried that 
as an evil agency ; now the admission of enemies 
is the best of proof. The natural incredulity be- 
gotten of experience in a world where deceptions 
abound, made it the interest of every beholder to 
dispute them if possible, and to this end, to ex- 
amine them and the effects of them with the 
closest continuous scrutiny ; and now, what is the 
final result? We find nothing on earth so abun- 
dantly and unanimously proven to be true, as the 
miracles of Christ and his apostles. To dispute 
it, is to set up individual opinion against the 
greatest amount of the most positive testimony 
that has ever been gathered in defence of any 
subject or thing in the world; and that such tes- 
timony to known deception as absolute truth 
should exist at all, is an impossibility in the 
nature of things. This testimony does not relate 
to abstractions, but to one simple objective fact. 
What, then, is the law upon such a matter by 
which Courts of justice are governed? It is this: 


“In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry ts not 
whether tt is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether 
there ts sufficient probability that tt is true.” —Greenleaf, as above, 
p23. 


Can there, then, be any appreciable probability 
that the mass of testimony aforesaid to the fact of 


a 


REVEALED TRUTH. I13 


the performance of miracles is false, when all 
known experience proves that no such amount of 
testimony on any secular matter of fact has ever 
occurred in the world? Certainly not; there can 
be but one rational opinion on this point. 


‘“‘In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition of 
fact, the previous question to be determined is, When may it be 
said to be proved? The answer to this question is furnished by 
another rule of municipal law, which may be thus stated : 

““A proposition of fact is proved when its truth is established by 
competent and satisfactory evidence. 

“By competent evidence is meant such as the nature of the 
thing to be proved requires ; and by satisfactory evidence is 
meant that amount of proof which ordinarily satisfies an unpre- 
judiced mind, beyond any reasonable doubt. 

“In a question of fact in human affairs, nothing more than 
moral evidence can be required, for this is the best evidence 
which, from the nature of the case, is attainable. Now as the 
facts stated in Scripture History are not of the (mathematical) 
kind, but are cognizable by the senses, they may be said to be 
proved when they are established by that kind and degree of 
evidence which, as we have just observed, would, in the affairs 
of human life, satisfy the mind and conscience of a common 
man. When we have this degree of evidence, it is unreason- 
able to require more. A juror would violate his oath, if he 
should refuse to acquit or condemn a person charged with an 
offence, where this measure of proof was adduced. 

‘Proceeding further to inquire whether the facts related by 
the four evangelists are proved by competent and satisfactory 
evidence, we are led, first, to consider on which side lies the 
burden of establishing the credibility of witnesses. On this 
point the municipal law furnishes a rule, which is of constant 
application in all trials by jury, and is indeed the dictate of that 
charity which thinketh no evil : 

“In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every 
witness is to be presumed credible until the contrary ts shown, the ~ 
burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the objector.” —Lbid., 
p. 25. 

‘This rule serves to show the injustice with which the writers of 


114 VEDDER LECTURES. 


the Gospels have ever been treated by infidels—an injustice silent- 
ly acquiesced in even by Christians—in requiring the Christian 
affirmatively, and by positive evidence, aliunde, to establish the 
credibility of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony 
is entitled to be considered, and in permitting the testimony of a 
single profane writer, alone and uncorroborated, to outweigh 
that of any single Christian. It is time that this injustice should 
cease ; that the testimony of the evangelists should be admitted 
to be true, until it can be disproved by those who would impugn 
it; that the silence of one sacred writer on any point should no 
more detract from his own veracity or that of the other histo- 
rians than the like circumstance is permitted to do among pro- 
fane writers ; and that the four evangelists should be admitted 
in corroboration of each other as readily as Josephus and 
Tacitus, or Polybius and Livy. 

‘‘But if the burden of establishing the credibility of the evan- 
gelists were devolved on those who affirm the truth of their nar- 
ratives, it is still capable of a ready moral demonstration, when 
we consider the nature and character of the testimony, and the 
essential marks of difference between true narratives of facts and 
the creations of falsehoods. It is universally admitted that the 
credit to be given to witnesses depends chiefly on their ability 
to discern and comprehend what was before them, their oppor- 
tunities for observation, the degree and accuracy with which 
they are accustomed to mark passing events, and their integrity 
in relating them. The rule of municipal law on this subject 
embraces all these particulars, and is thus stated by a legal text- 
writer of the highest repute. 

“* The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, 
their honesty ; secondly, their ability ; thirdly, their number and the 
consistency of their testimony ; fourthly, the conformity of their tes- 
timony with experience and fifthly, the coincidence of their testi- 
mony unth collateral circumstances. 

‘‘Let the evangelists be tried by these tests. 

“And fst, as to their honesty. Here they are entitled to the 
benefit of the general course of human experience, that men 
ordinarily speak the truth when they have no prevailing motive 
or inducement to the contrary. This presumption is applied in 
courts of justice, even to witnesses whose integrity is not wholly 
free from suspicion ; much more is it applicable to the evangel- 
ists, whose testimony went against all their worldly interests. 


REVEALED TRUTH. II5 


“‘In the second place, as to their adility. The text-writer before 
cited observes that the ability of a witness to speak the truth de- 
pends on the opportunities which he has had for observing the 
fact, the accuracy of his powers of discerning, and the faithful- 
ness of his memory in retaining the facts once observed and 
known, 

“Tt is always to be presumed that men are honest and of 
sound mind, and of the average and ordinary degree of intelli- 
gence. This is not the judgment of mere charity; it is also the 
uniform presumption of the law of the land, a presumption 
which is always allowed freely and fully to operate, until the 
fact is shown to be otherwise by the party who denies the ap- 
plicability of this presumption to the particular case in question. 
Whenever an objection is raised in opposition to ordinary pre- 
sumptions of law, or to the ordinary experience of mankind, the 
burden of proof is devolved on the objector by the common and 
ordinary rules of evidence and of practice incourts. No lawyer 
is permitted to argue in disparagement of the intelligence or in- 
tegrity of a witness against whom the case itself afforded no par- 
ticle of testimony. This is sufficient for our purpose, in regard 
to these witnesses. But more than this is evident from the mi- 
nuteness of their narratives and from their history. Matthew was 
trained, by his calling, to habits of severe investigation and sus- 
picious scrutiny, and Luke’s profession demanded an exactness 
of observation equally close and searching. The other two 
evangelists were as much too unlearned to forge the story of 
their Master’s life, as they were too learned and acute to be de- 
ceived by an imposture. 

“Tn the third place, as to the umber and consistency of their 
testimony there is substantial truth, under circumstantial vari- 
ety, enough of discrepancy to show there could have been no 
previous concert among them, and at the same time such sub- 
stantial agreement as to show that they were all independent 
narrators of the same great transaction as the events actually 
occurred, 

“In the fourth place, as to the conformity of their testimony 
with experience, The title of the evangelists to full credit for 
veracity would be readily conceded by the objector, if the facts 
they relate were such as ordinarily occur in human experience.” 
—Greenleaf, pp. 26-36. 


116 VEDDER LECTURES. 


The estimable and talented author whom [| 
have so largely quoted has rendered valuable 
service in the discussion now in hand; and I am 
happy to say that, as a /egal question, he has 
placed the claims of the Gospel beyond reasona- 
ble dispute, and has left infidelity crimsoned 
with the disgrace of an opposition demonstrably 
due to pure malevolence. 


These narratives record many and wonderful. 


miracles. Here we may be told that “it is quite 
unnecessary to expend breath upon that which is 
taken for granted, when it needs to be proved; 
for such a thing as a miracle can never occur, and 
is plainly impossible, because every one knows 
that the course of things is uniform, and pro- 
ceeds upon an established uniformity according 
to the laws of nature, which admit of no suspen- 


sion, much less infraction. They secure the con- 


fidence of all men, savage and civilized, and upon 
their undeviating exactitude of operation all men 
of all ages have relied and do rely.” But in this 
statement there is an evident assumption of the 
thing to be proved, and the objector has no right 
to use an argument encumbered with the same 
difficulty he charges upon the one he combats. 
Besides, it isa fallacy ; because it presupposes that 
the so-called laws of nature are princzples instead 
of general facts, and that they are pre-existent to 
nature itself. Moreover, the objector bases his 
assertion upon another, that matter is eternal, and 
consequently that the universe is either eternal 
or an effect without a cause. This would be to 
admit the mightiest of miracles, for whether the 


REVEALED TRUTH. 117 


universe be created, or has ever existed as a 
causeless fact, it is the miracle of greatest magni- 
tude. David Hume, who had, it would seem, the 
acutest mind that ever soared among the clouds 
of infidelity, is the parent of that celebrated argu- 
ment from experience against the possibility of 
miracles, with which the most of us perhaps are 
acquainted. Hume was indebted to Hobbes for 
the doctrine that there is no necessary connection 
between cause and effect, but since this is an as- 
sumption, and more manifestly contrary to uni- 
versal observation and experience than miracles 
can be supposed to be, he evidently could not con- 
sistently plead against them the very difficulty 
that encumbered his own doctrine. He, however, 
was so effectually answered by Campbell that he 
failed to make any attempt at reply, yet the infidels 
of our day continue to employ this exploded ar- 
gument, just as if it had never been refuted by 
Brougham, Chalmers, and others who have thrice 
slain the slain since Campbell wrote. 

We take it for granted, that no one who ac- 
credits the works of nature to the designing mind 
and creative power of God will be fool enough 
to say, that in shaping and adapting her laws of 
progress by an arrangement of things called by us 
causes and consequents, he unwittingly legislated 
himself out of the control of his own universe. It 
is then as evidently consistent with reason as it is 
clearly competent to omnipotence, that the divine 
energy should work for special purposes away 
back in the line of causation, without disturbing 
the general laws of nature; or in a more imme- 


118 VEDDER LECTURES. 


diate and direct way, to create miracles without 
interfering with their operation at all. For this 
purpose it is not necessary that God should sus- 
pend any one of them for a moment. A law of 
nature may simultaneously act, and be acted upon 
even by ourselves in a small way. Does any one 
suppose that the law of gravity, for example, is 
suspended when he sees a huge stone ascending 
mid-air, to its destined place at the top of a lofty 
building? No, because he sees the mechanical 
contrivance at work by which that law is coun- 
teracted, while acting all the time with its full 
force upon the ascending stone. Dida bystander, 
ignorant of this contrivance, and not seeing its 
connection with the stone, behold the ascent, he 
would exclaim, A miracle! and to him profoundly 
ignorant of mechanics, and seeing nothing but 
the stone, it would be a miracle. Will any one, 
then, pretend to believe that what man can do on 
4 small scale with visible means of counteraction, 
God cannot do on a large scale without the 
means of counteraction being made visible to his 
creatures? Surely not, if he have a mind bigger 
than that of a beetle. Every wonder is not a mir- 
acle, though every miracle is a wonder ; and con- 
sists in the power of God counteracting the laws 
of nature for a special purpose. Hence the differ- 
ence between the false and the true in this matter. 
Now when we consider the moral end of miracles, 
I think they must be viewed as the most appro- 
priate evidence God could give in order to beget 
confidence in any new truth or truths necessary 
to be known for human welfare. | 


ee eee eed 


‘REVEALED TRUTH. 119g 


Two objects were to be gained by the miracles 
of our Redeemer and his apostles: the one to 
illustrate his own glory as the Son of God, the 
Messiah of Israel, and to prove his mission as 
God’s great apostle, competent to instruct men in 
divine fact and truth, necessary to be known for 
their salvation; and the other to give proof cor- 
responding to the claim that the Gospel is 
“worthy of all acceptation,’ and the only true 
religion upon the face of the earth. These ob- 
jects were secured not merely by the miraculous 
nature of his works, overwhelming men with the 
utmost astonishment, but by their moral charac- 
ter, leading them to see that the moral ailments 
of the soul could only find relief in him whose 
divine benevolence was expended in curing those 
natural diseases which were beyond the reach of 
human skill; for these miracles were not only 
great, but gracious; not only mighty, but merci- 
ful; not only demonstrative of inherent divine 
power, but of unspeakably benevolent design in 
him who came to announce himself able and will- 
ing to save every soul reposing in him for abso- 
lute deliverance from “the second death,” and 
for absolute bestowment of a glorious immortality. 
Considered as works of supernatural power, mir- 
acles were designed as the seal of heaven to stamp 
his mission and his gospel with the authority of 
Almighty God ; considered as works of benevo- 
lence, they were intended to win the confidence 
of every generous heart to both, as the Saviour 
and the means of salvation befitting the nature 
of divine mercy, and every way suited to the 


120 VEDDER LECTURES. 


wretchedness of man. They were the natural 
signs of the moral thing signified, pointing to 
higher wonders than those addressed to the 
natural eye. Christ came to seek and save the 
lost; to this end, all that he did and all that he 
said had a uniform tendency. Hence it is that 
every miracle had its moral, and was symbolical 
of greater, higher, holier things than were imme- 
diately apparent to the crowd of spectators whose 
applause followed its performance. To suppose 
miracles only designed to attest the truth of doc- 
trine, would be to overlook much of their actual 
use, to miss the impressive lessons which they 
teach every mind apt to learn, and to lose the 
richest repast which they bring to the hungry 
heart. 

In their attesting character, they all have the 
same object, like so many concurring witnesses, 
to make up cubic solidity of testimony, and they 
have done it; but in their 2//ustrative character, 
they illumine the important lessons of the Gos- 
pel. They show how Christ destroys the works 
of the devil, and that he is able and assuredly will 
rescue this little province, revolted from the Em- 
pire of God, from its present ill condition, and 
bring it back to allegiance never again to be 
broken. ROM. 8: 19-23. 

From what I have now said, one thing at least 
must appear plain. Upon the supposition that 
Revealed Truth is possible, it is to a certain ex- 
tent probable. So far, then, miracles in attesta- 
tion of it ought to be performed, because they 
afford extraordinary proof commensurate with 


REVEALED TRUTH. I21 


extraordinary claims; because, as we have shown, 
they do not violate the laws of nature, and be- 
cause human confidence could not in any other 
way be so well secured ; therefore, if revelation 
be possible, the position of the infidel is impossible 
in the nature of things, and this shows the absur- 
dity of its assumption. I therefore say, that the 
denial of well-established facts, unsupported by 
any thing but the 4 griorz apprehension of a mind 
averse to the truth which they circumstantially 
confirm, is worth no more for an argument than the 
slaver of a laboring beast impatient of restraint. 


~ 


woe 


a 
4 


ee 


‘lt C3 OM NSD gE 


REVEALED TRUTH. 


THE A POSTERIORI ARGUMENT. 


Humanity not derived from brutality—Quotations from Darwin and 
Haeckel—Facts unshaken must be accounted for—Testimony of ene- 
mies most reliable—Testimony of Judas, what it proves—Why 
Christ chose him—Josephus’ testimony shown to be unimpeachable— 
Testimony of Tacitus—Admitted by Gibbon—Pilate’s report—Impor- 
tance of it in the d posteriori argument—Celsus—Porphyry—Pliny’s 
letter and Trajan’s answer—Julian—Facts established by twelve prin- 
cipal enemies, and a multitude of friends—Infidel argument a con- 
spicuous failure—Strauss—Renan—The @ posteriori argument irre- 
futable—Revealed Truth triumphant—Disbelief and misbelief. 


THE great Author of our being did not develop 
man out of any of the lower animals. He did not 
make him simply the most respectable brute, such 
as some of our scientists seem to claim that they 
are, and avow themselves contented with the an- 
cestral character; but he created him an incar- 
nated soul, endowed with reason and conscience, 
and never required him to believe any thing con- 
founding to the one or in conflict with the other. 


124 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Our “scientists,” as they call themselves, affect 
to put contempt upon this, gravely informing us 
that reason is nothing but a development of mat- 
ter, common to men and beasts, and conscience a 
thing of educational instinct. 

Darwin says: “Prof. Huxley, in the opinion 
of most competent judges, has conclusively shown 
that in every single visible character man differs 
less from the higher apes than these do from the 
lower members of the same order of primates.” 
“The conclusion that man is the co-descendant 
with other species of some ancient, lower, and ex- 
tinct form is not in any degree new. Lamarck 
long ago came to this conclusion, which has lately 
been maintained by several eminent naturalists 
and philosophers ; for instance, Wallace, Huxley, 
Lyell, Vogt, Biichner, Rolle, and especially by 
Haeckel.” — The Descent of Man, vol. i. pp. 3, 4- 
Their volumes, filled with such irrational senti- 
ments, are offered as proof of a position so in- 
tensely absurd that it defies the resources of 
rationality to do more in the way of an answer 
than express its indignation, pointing to such 
theorists as the most conspicuous examples of 
what infidelity can do for besotting the intellect. 
The assumption that this is the result of science, 
is a joke at their own expense. 

Viewing man, as he everywhere recognizes 
himself, and as the Scriptures describe him, an 
original being from the start, endowed with an 
intellectual and moral nature, we must see that 
he isa creature of necessities which grow out of 
that nature, which can alone be met out of the 


REVEALED TRUTH. 125 


storehouse of divine benevolence, and which are 
not included in the wants of the brute creation. 
If God, who is repudiated by our learned authors 
aforesaid, have given man to know a class of facts 
and doctrines answering to these necessities of 
his mental and moral being, but impossible to be 
known in any other way than that of supernatural 
revelation, he must have given him therewith cer- 
tain infallible proofs of it whenever and wherever 
made. If we now show that this is just what has 
been done, by a line of facts infinitely more re- 
liable than those depended upon by our “ scien- 
tists’ for their enormous conclusions, and that 
the evidence is just what is befitting, and, so far 
as we can see, imparted by the best possible 
methods, we may fairly claim a triumph so abso- 
lute as to drive all gainsayers into the position, 
not merely of atheists, but of anti-theists, whose 
only remaining excuse for their opposition to Re- 
vealed Truth will be a dogged assertion that there 
cannot possibly be a God to reveal it. To this 
position our more advanced “scientists” have 
already come. Bruno has thus expressed it: “A 
spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small 
but contains a part of the divine substance, by 
which it is animated.” In quoting this amazing 
sentence, Haeckel calls it “anoble idea of God”’! 
Drunkenness then must be a divine virtue, since 
it is produced by imbibing God distilled from 
vegetable matter! 

However absurd such sentiments are, the 
most determined of their authors cannot deny 
the facts of Christianity as they are now known 


120 VEDDER LECTURES. 


the world over, with which the & posteriort reason 
begins investigation. I mean such facts as the 
existence of the visible Church, her Bible, her 
ministry, her sacraments, her Sabbath, her assem- 
blies, her forms of worship, her monumental 
structures, her working force, her world-wide in- 
fluence in the formation and continuance of the 
Christian chronology ; an influence that has grown 
up from a beginning the most unpromising and 
most unlikely to produce it. These facts they are 
bound to account for in some such way as shall 
show our theory of them to be not only wrong 
but unreasonable, and shall prove their existence 
possible upon some other ground more satisfac- 
tory, and more in accordance with the philosophy 
of history and the natural sequences of things. 
We show by every possible method’ of proof, 
direct, indirect, and circumstantial, that, unlike 
any other, the Christian religion is based on a 
Joundation of facts unique in themselves, and satis- 
factorily explaining all the consequential facts just 
named, all of which are links of the same chain 
upon which the hand of honest investigation may 
glide along until it reaches the very manger in 
Bethlehem, where the young child lay who was 
“called Jesus, because he should save his people 
from their sins.” Our opponents must show either 
that there is no necessary connection between the 
former and the latter facts with which themselves 
are familiar, or that the whole chain is suspended 
upon a hook of fiction fastened in an obscure 
corner of the world, nearly two thousand years 
ago. But they have never made any respectable 


REVEALED TRUTH. 127 


attempt to do either; yet, until this is done, the 
Christian religion remains unshaken in its claim 
to be a system which carries in the van of its 
march the most indubitable evidence of its super- 
natural origin. If such had not been the fact, 
nothing could have saved it from instant exposure 
by its earliest enemies, whose ability, opportuni- 
ties, and inclination were fully equal to insure 
success. If the birth, life, death, and resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ, with all their attending cir- 
cumstances as recorded, had not taken place; if 
the miraculous works, the prophetical announce- 
ments, the wonderful utterances, the great prin- 
ciples, the original doctrines predicated of him 
had been mere accretions of fable, gradually 
gathered ,with the lapse of time around some 
small nucleus of inadequate fact—nothing could 
have been easier than an early demonstration of 
the imposture. It is utterly incredible that, in- 
stead of this, such an imposture should have so 
succeeded as to have been prized more than life 
by thousands upon thousands who suffered for 
the sake of the Gospel rather than disown it as the 
cause of God. Surely, then, it these facts were 
false, and these doctrines the unsupported fig- 
ments of an imbecile fanaticism, the world, for 
the first three centuries of the Gospel’s most con- 
spicuous success, must have been peopled with 
races of knaves, or cursed with generations of 
fools. In either case they. would have left the 
legacy. of their debased character to their succes- 
sors. But nothing of the kind existed. On the 
contrary, the first hundred years of our era was 


128 VEDDER LECTURES. 


a very enlightened age compared with previous 
centuries, and for this reason. Conquests of bar- 
barians had been made, Roman civilization largely 
extended, and the times favored the culture of 
letters. “‘ Literature and the arts,” says Mosheim, 
“with the study of humanity and philosophy, be- 
came generally diffused, and the cultivation of 
them extended to countries that previously had 
formed no other scale by which to estimate the 
dignity of man than that of corporeal vigor or 
muscular strength.” Amid these circumstances, 
so favorable to popular elevation, Christianity 
began its history. Fifty years after the crucifix- 
ion, multitudes in all parts of the Roman empire 
accepted it as true, and based its facts and its 
success upon the great foundation fact of the re- 
surrection of Christ. No system of fact and doc- 
trine was ever taught which so soon as commonly 
known, as to their tendency, met with universal 
hostility. But this hostility did not begin with 
the denial of proffered truth. Jew and Gentile 
were bitterly opposed to each other, but both 
unitedly opposed Christianity, simply because it 
assailed the false hope and self-righteousness of 
the one, and the idolatry and licentiousness of the 
other, as alike ruinous to the interests of man- 
kind in every aspect. While it enforced moral 
truth that was or might have been known, it 
taught original truth that could not otherwise 
have been known. It won strong friends, for 
which reason it excited strong enemies, whose 
aim was to destroy it; and to suppose they did 
not act in obedience to such motives as hatred 


REVEALED TRUTH. 129 


always prompts, is to suppose that the men of 
that period were more virtuous than those of suc- 
ceeding generations. At no time in human his- 
tory have the instincts of an evil nature acted 
more vigorously than at the period of which lam 
speaking. It has brought down to us the indis- 
putable knowledge of a conflict between the 
friends and foes of Christianity, so long, so sharp, 
so ferocious and bloody as to form one of the 
most unmanageable arguments that infidelity has 
to encounter: I mean the admission of early and 
competent enemies when they did speak, and their 
significant silence when they could not speak. The 
beginning of it we have in the gospel history. It 
is admitted on all hands that the testimony of an 
enemy is worthy of implicit reliance. If one man 
known to be hostile to another is compelled to 
bear witness to his integrity, that evidence is 
more surely taken for exact truth than the evi- 
dence of a friend who may be supposed some- 
what biassed in his favor. Keeping this in view, 
I propose to prove the truth of the four gospel 
narratives by just such testimony, contenting my- 
self with bare references to that of friends, who 
by thousands sacrificed their dearest worldly in- 
terests, braved dangers, and embraced the cruel- 
est forms of death rather than surrender their 
faith and hope in Christ. I begin with Judas 
Iscariot. , 

He was a chosen apostle, who with the rest 
was familiar with Christ in private and in public 
during the whole of his ministry. If ever Christ 
had a subtle enemy in the world, Judas Iscariot 


130 VEDDER LECTURES. 


was that enemy. If ever there was an apostate 
who belied all his professions with the utmost 
coolness, Judas was that apostate. If ever there 
was a traitor who, unprompted by malice, could 
sacrifice the dearest interests of others to the 
self-interest of calculating ambition, Judas was 
that traitor; and if ever there was a wretch com- 
bining in his heart of falsehood the meanest ele- 
ments of human villany by his own showing, 
Judas was that man. To find this enemy, this 
apostate, this traitor, this wretch tortured at last 
into the necessity of proclaiming the innocence 
of Christ and the justness of his cause, sealing the 
truth of his evidence with his own blood, is some- 
thing so surprising in itself, that the warmest 
friends could never have expected it. Let us not 
forget that the testimony of an enemy is ever 
admitted to be the strongest positive evidence 
possible in favor of the one against whom his en- 
mity is directed. Peter, Paul, and John have 
nobly proved the truth of Christianity, but oppo- 
nents like Strauss and Renan remind us that they 
were the ardent friends of its Founder, and be- 
coming deeply involved in his plans, or acting 
upon their own after-thoughts, they very likely 
felt themselves pledged to carry them out by 
every means in their power. Very well; let these 
gentlemen observe that we present now a witness 
to whom they can take no such exception, whose 
testimony is of an irresistible nature, and enforced 
by circumstances so strangely corroborative and 
so strongly demonstrative, that it can be subject 
to no such drawback as they imagine hampers 


REVEALED TRUTH. 131 


the evidence of all the other apostles; a testi- 
mony which meets them upon the very thresh- 
old of entrance to logical investigation; a testi- 
mony which they cannot ignore without im- 
peaching their own honesty, which they cannot 
discredit without disgracing their own claims as 
competent investigators, and for which they can- 
not account except upon the ground of fact and 
truth underlying the very cause they seek to dis- 
credit. No man can possibly deny its value to 
that cause, nor criticise the fairness which insists 
that an opponent is unworthy of respect who 
affects to despise, or will not consent to dispose 
of, an argument claimed to be unanswerable. . 
The assumption that Judas Iscariot is a myth, 
is a precious piece of wit in those who cannot 
otherwise displace his testimony. How happened 
it that the general sagacity of the Jewish rulers, 
with whom he is said to have driven his bargain, 
became all at once so particularly foolish as not 
to have published to the world the invention that 
_ heaped infamy upon their own heads? Why did 
they fail to convict-the history of their investment 
of Judas’ money in the Potter’s Field asa forgery? 
There can be but one answer. The first men- 
tion of Judas in the New Testament is when 
Christ chose twelve out of the small number of 
his followers, and appointed them to be associated 
with himself in the strictest family intimacy, to 
be educated by himself for the work of the gos- 
pel ministry, and to be officially known by the 
term “Apostle.” The catalogue of their names is 
thrice given, and every time ends with the name 


i132 VEDDER LECTURES. 


and description of “ Judas Iscariot, who also be- 
trayed him.” Only a short time elapses after 
their appointment, when we find Judas, together 
with the rest, receiving from his Master power 
over unclean spirits, diseases, and other physical 
evils, and commissioned to go preaching the Gos- 
pel, and confirming it by the exercise of this mi= 
raculous power. From thistime we hear nothing 
of him until near the close of that precious life, 
which his treason put into the hands of its ene- 
mies. When Peter said, in answer to a question 
by his Master, “Lord, to whom shall we go? 
Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe 
that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living 
God,” Judas united with the rest in this declara- 
tion; but his attempted concealment of character 
from the knowledge of the Master was in vain, 
for Christ immediately responded, “ Have I not 
chosen you twelve? and one of you is a devil.” 
The historian explains by saying: ‘He spoke of 
Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon ; for he it was that 
should betray him, being one of the twelve.” On 
the Sabbath preceding the execution of his trea- 
son, we find all these disciples at a dinner, mani- 
festing indignation at Mary for wasting her box 
of ointment upon the feet of their Master, to which 
Judas thus ventured to give expression: “ Why 
was not this ointment sold for three hundred 
pence, and given to the poor?” The interpreta- 
tion of his cant is thus given by the historian: 
“This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but 
because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bore 
what was put therein.” As the result of his trea- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 133 


son, Jesus was condemned by Pilate, after that 
functionary had judicially acquitted him, to suffer 
the most ignominious penalty known to Roman 
law. Matters had now gone so far as to convince 
Judas that his innocent Master would suffer death. 
Knowing his power, he had perhaps thought that 
Christ would miraculously escape; but now that 
all was against it, smitten with remorse, the poor 
devil brought back his thirty pieces of silver to 
the priests and elders, confessing his guilt in 
terms which he probably hoped might avail for 
the stay of proceedings: “I have sinned in that 
I have betrayed innocent blood;’ but met, as 
he was, with the bitter taunt, “ What is that to 
us? See thou to that,” frantically he dashed: 
down his ill-gotten gain before them, and went out 
and hanged himself. This completes the account 
given of the traitor, and it is mainly valuable as 
the basis of an argument which, in my judgment, 
cannot be shaken. 

Here is a man of sense and ability, qualities for 
which he was made the treasurer of Christ’s little 
company, and one in whom they all reposed_ con- 
fidence. He was thoroughly acquainted with the 
private life, knew the habits and sentiments, and 
finally learned the ultimate views of his Master. 
He was, by his silence and caution, evidently fit- 
ted to detect any imposture that might have been 
attempted, a man not only able but willing to gra- 
tify any resentment begotten of disappointment 
or miscalculating ambition. Swayed by avarice, 
covetous of money, prompted by selfishness, it 
was not in his nature that he should fail to make 


134 VEDDER LECTURES. 


a strong case against Christ, if within his power ; 
yet this very man, having betrayed him for 
money into the hands of his enemies, without 
assigning any reason beyond that couched in the 
obsequious question, “ What will you give me?” 
no sooner reflects upon his horrible deed, than 
his conscience, aroused like a lion, seizes him and 
hurries him back to confess his iniquity, and in 
the strongest possible language to declare the in- 
nocence of Jesus before those malignant rulers to 
whom he had sold him, but a few hours before, for 
the price of a slave; and finding he could not re- 
cover him, in a paroxysm of remorse he expires 
by his own hand almost in their very presence. 
Now I claim this short but sharp tragedy to be an 
attestation of the integrity of Christ, and of his 
claims, as strong as strength can make it. It is an 
instance of overwhelming evidence extorted from 
the conscience of an enemy writhing under the 
plunging sting of remorse, and sealed with his 
own blood. If by his excited manner and excit- 
ing exclamation Judas had meant no more than 
this, that Christ had done nothing worthy of bonds, 
‘much less of death, he clearly enough indicated 
that Christ’s capture by them was the result of 
his own treason, and the absurdly wicked process 
by which he was condemned, the procurement of 
their reckless and daring malice; but the full mean- 
ing of Judas evidently was, that innocence in all 
things covered the character and life of Jesus. 
Consequently, the following me were A 
in his wailing confession: 

1. Judas believed that Jesus was the Measale 


REVEALED TRUTH. 135 


but he found out by his teaching that the Messiah 
was different in all respects from the imaginary 
one he had been instructed to believe in by the 
false glosses of the Rabbis, and hence his disap- 
pointment. The wings of his carnal imagination 
had been clipped, and the hopes of his ambition 
destroyed ; yet at the same time he believed that 
Christ told the truth about himself, and had cor- 
roborated it by the divine testimony of works 
impossible to man. The Jews had accused him 
of blasphemy in these plain words: “ Because, 
being a man, thou makest thyself equal with God.” 
Now if Christ had been only a man, he would 
have been guilty of blasphemy; if only a good 
man, he would have corrected their mistake and 
repudiated their imputation, but he did not-do it ; 
if, then, Judas had not been convinced that he was 
more than man, how easily and how justly could 
he have accused him with a good conscience! 
How much more than a man, perhaps he would 
not have undertaken to say; but when Christ 
manifested before his eyes the incommunicable at- 
tributes of God, which cannot be imparted to any 
of his creatures without destroying the distinction 
between Creator and creature, and enabled him 
to perform miraculous works, he could not say that 
the Saviour of sinners was himself a sinner. 
Hence by “innocent blood’”’ he meant purity of 
principle and holiness of life. i 

2. By this declaration Judas must have meant 
that the miracles of Christ were genuine, and his 
doctrines divine. He himself had been empowered 
with the other apostles to work miracles, and 


136 VEDDER LECTURES. 


therefore could tell whether he and they had per- 
formed them. Matthew is particular in his infor- 
mation that Christ on a certain occasion called his 
twelve chosen apostles together, and formally 
conferred upon them this power, and bid them to 
go forth and exercise it, and among their names 
he specifies that of Judas Iscariot. Can we for a 
moment doubt that he made the experiment on 
the first demoniac or diseased person he met? 
Must he not therefore have known whether he 
did actually heal the sick and expel demons, or 
failed? Surely his own experience must have 
inwrought the conviction that Christ was precisely 
what he represented himself to be. On the other 
hand, if he had been imposed upon in this matter 
he was not the man to have failed in making it 
known for self-justification. 

3. Having had perfect knowledge of the views 
of his Master so far as he could penetrate, he had 
no ground for the least suspicion that Christ pro- 
posed any interference with the Roman Govern- 
ment. It was precisely this refusal that exasper- 
ated the Jews, whose highest aspiration and ex- 
pectation from the Messiah was deliverance from 
subjection to it; hence their malevolence. If 
Christ had uttered a word against Cesar, it 
would have been considered treasonable, but not- 
withstanding all their efforts his captious enemies 
could not elicit from him any thing of the kind ; 
nor could Judas report any such word spoken in 
private. He was therefore “innocent” on this 
point. 

4. The remorseful declaration of the traitor 


REVEALED TRUTH. 137 


implies also that his Master was compassionate, 
beneficent, kind, and always doing good. Hence 
he had no charge to make when he received the 
price of his treason; nor when he returned it, had 
he to recall any accusation, or to unsay any dis- 
paraging word. He simply confessed himself a 
vile traitor, and hastened to extinguish his own 
guilty life before the “innocent blood” should be 
shed. | 

The leading inquiry, therefore, must now relate 
to Judas himself. Was he a wise man or a fool? 
Was he or was he not competent to form a just 
opinion of Christ and his designs, so far as he 
knew them? Unless we can be assured on this 
point his testimony is of little worth. Happily 
we have not the least difficulty here, for although 
Christ chose his apostles from the lower walks of 
life, he took care that they should be men of 
sound minds and good sense. The most deter- 
mined of our opponents have conceded this, in 
their impeachment of the apostles on the score of 
artfulness and natural shrewdness, altogether in- 
compatible with imbecility of mind and adapt- 
edness to their business as remarkably successful 
impostors. That Judas was one of their number 
is therefore a strong presumption in favor of his 
intellectual and executive ability; but to this 
must be added the fact that Christ raised him to 
a post of trust by making him treasurer for the 
whole, a fact indicative of his special fitness so far 
as the qualities of sound sense and aptness for 
business are concerned; and if we may build 
upon the opinions of his fellows, he seems to have 


138 VEDDER LECTURES. 


been in good repute among them; for when the 
plainest intimation was given by Christ that one 
of their own number should betray him, so far as 
the history shows, not one of them was led to 
suspect Judas, until he was pointed out to John; 
and even then they misinterpreted the words of 
the Master. The manner, too, in which Judas 
conducted himself from first to last is indicative 
of no failure of qualification in the particulars 
named. However he may have come to form his 
treasonable design, he showed much tact in con- 
cealment, at such times as the unsparing lash of 
language against fraud, hypocrisy, and wicked- 
ness must have fallen with a heavily felt weight 
upon himself. Prudence no less than secrecy 
was the result of his forethought. Frequently 
his brethren expressed their old inherited idea 
and expectation of a sensuous kingdom; but 
marking and mistaking the silence of the Master 
on this point, cautious Judas was silent too, though 
this very thing had formed the only attraction 
which had drawn his covetous heart to the cause of 
Christ, and into which, from its immense popular- 
ity among the common people, he hoped it would 
issue. Two of them on a certain occasion dis- 
played a merciless zeal for calling down fire from 
heaven upon the Samaritans who had not treated 
their Master with becoming respect, but Judas 
was never guilty of such folly. The sons of 
Zebedee wanted to sit on either side of Christ 
upon his throne, in the kingdom they thought he 
would establish; but Judas betrayed no such 
weakness. In short, we hear nothing from this 


REVEALED TRUTH. 139 


close-mouthed man except an occasional sentiment 
after others had spoken. Silence, smoothness, 
and a studied carriage covered his cunning and 
shielded him from rebuke. So marked are these 
things that no one can tax Judas with a want of 
sense, or any other quality prized by the business 
men of the world. He had clearly all the requi- 
sites for a shrewd spy, an ample opportunity and 
sufficient inclination to do the work of one. 
Various reasons have been surmised why Christ 
selected such a man to be an apostle, since he 
must have known from the first his real charac- 
ter. Without pretending to explain or pro- 
nounce, it may be allowed me to suggest that by 
this choice he would show to the world, in all 
after ages, that he had not been afraid to have 
his most secret conduct and private intercourse 
pass under the eye of an exemy , and lest some un- 
discoverable and unworthy end should be plausibly 
imputed to him, he would initiate a man of a 
thoroughly worldly spirit into his little company, 
who, having received the delegated power and 
exercised the privileges conferred upon the rest, 
might be able to testify on any matter connected 
with himself. This choice at any rate proves him 
to have been unsullied with any impure design. 
Now, it will be readily granted that, upon the 
supposition Jesus was practising upon the cre- 
dulity of the people, such was the nature of his 
undertaking it absolutely required accomplices. 
None would of course be thought of but his 
apostles, and they have been so represented by 
the champions of infidelity. Well, Judas was one 


140 VEDDER LECTURES. 


of them, and enjoyed all the privileges of the rest, 
and appears to have been admitted equally with 
them to the greatest familiarity with Christ ; be- 
sides, he was the treasurer, and was active in pro- 
viding for their temporal wants, not forgetting 
himself. Whatever may have been their enthusi- 
asm, he was free from all such feeling as might 
have overriden his judgment.’ Having at length 
discovered that no worldly emolument or grand 
_ office of state was likely to reward any of Christ's 
adherents, there was no motive for his longer 
continuance with them, but that which lay in the 
money-bag, from which he could pick and steal 
as adroitly as any of subsequent times in the line 
of his succession, and when he finally parted com- 
pany with them without resigning his office, he 
did not as a matter of course resign the bag. 
What now does this man resolve upon? Doeshe 
go to the Jewish rulers with any revelations of 
wrong respecting the design or the conduct of 
Christ ? Does he indicate that their charge of 
blasphemy could be sustained ? Does he unfold 
any political sentiments that might be construed 
into a charge of treason against the government 
they themselves abhorred ? Does he say any thing 
that could afford an excuse to these rulers of his 
nation to apprehend the object of their hate? It 
is quite evident that their anxiety to make out a 
clear case led them to examine Judas with all 
sharpness. Had he uttered a word that could 
have been used with any show of evidence, it 
would have been made prominent in the history 
of the mock trials before the High Priest and Pi- 


REVEALED TRUTH. I4!I 


late ; it would have been cast in the teeth of the 
traitor when he returned to confess his crimi- 
nality ; it would have been hurled at the apos- 
tles when they were afterwards brought before 
the dignitaries of the Sanhedrim; but on no 
occasion after his crucifixion was a word from 
Judas produced in evidence against Christ. 

‘“T have sinned, in that I have betrayed inno- 
cent blood!” Let now any man attempt to ac- 
count for the paroxysm of horror which drove 
the unhappy traitor to suicide, with the supposi- 
tion that Jesus was other than he claimed to be, 
and that Judas knew all. I would venture to pre- 
dict that his logic would crimson his cheek before 
he had gotten half through; for then all reason 
for the traitor’s violence would be swept away. 
So far from being tormented with remorse, 
his course in the delivery of Jesus, however cow- 
ardly, would have admitted of some justification. 
Can any one fail to see that such a person as Ju- 
das would never have killed himself for justifying 
his conduct? Unless Christ was what he claimed 
to be, Judas was a madman and a fool. I there- 
fore feel quite sure of my ground when I say that 
the very strongest historical argument in favor of 
Christ and Christianity is found to lie in this inci- 
dental tragedy of iniquity punishing itself. 

After all was over, the cause of the risen Re- 
deemer became more powerful than ever. Thou- 
sands of Jewish converts spread consternation 
among its enemies. They had indeed crucified 
Christ, but they had not killed Christianity. His 
resurrection was an astounding fact, first proved 


142 VEDDER LECTURES. 


to his murderers by their own guard set over his 
tomb, and afterwards by evidence of overwhelm- 
ing preponderance, giving mighty power to all 
preceding miracles, and becoming in itself an 
overshadowing fact like a mountain among hil- 
locks at its base. - . 

Josephus, who was born not long after the cru- 
cifixion of Christ, became the celebrated Jewish 
historian, whose work is still a standard among 
us. He bore testimony,to Christ in a celebrated 
passage of his “ Antiquities,” which has long been 
a matter of dispute, and is as follows: “ Now, 
there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it 
be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of 
wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive 
the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him 
both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. 
He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the sug- 
gestion of the principal men among us, had con- 
demned him to the cross, those who loved him at 
the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to 
them alive again the third day, as the divine 
propthes had foretold these and ten thousand 
other things concerning him. And the tribe of 
Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at 
this day.” 3 : 

This passage has been branded as an interpola- 
tion, and on that account many have hesitated to 
quote it as fairly among the available proofs 
of Christianity. While doubtful passages of 
historians are not needed for our purpose, | am 
not at all prepared to surrender this one as 
such, on account of such objections as Lardner 


REVEALED TRUTH. 143 


and some others have thought fatal to it. To me 
the balance of argument seems largely in its 
favor. ) 

I. It is said to appear doubtful from this fact : 
Josephus was a Jew, and an enemy to the Gospel ; 
therefore it cannot be supposed he would pen a 
passage admitting that Jesus was the Messiah and 
the worker of miracles which went to prove the 
truth of his claims. 

Allowing that he was an enemy, he wrote as a 
narrator of facts of such magnitude, that he could 
not suppress them without beclouding his own 
reputation as a faithful historian ; besides, the 
above is at best but an inference ; and one, too, 
which seems to me to be drawn from a mistaken 
view of the passage. Its author mentions some 
facts loosely admitted by his people, while he re- 
ferred to Jesus not as the true Messiah in his own 
regard, but as te Christ who was successful in 
forming an important eventin Jewish history, and 
a large party called out from his nation and after 
his name. While Josephus professed impartiality 
as a historian, he purposely put into his statement 
inaccurate facts with a record ot the main one 
relied upon by Christians as the test of _the truth 
of their faith—namely, the resurrection ; and then, 
with apparent contempt, called them ‘a tribe not 
extinct at this day.” There is an ambiguity about 
the whole paragraph, which makes it appear to 
the Jew as teaching one thing, and to the Gentile 
another.. For example; he says Christ was “a 
teacher of such men as received the truth with 
pleasure.” To the Jew, a sarcasm appears in the 


144 VEDDER LECTURES. 


word “such,” implying a contrast between the 
followers of Christ and the Pharisees, of whom 
Josephus was one; to the Gentile, men of un- 
prejudiced minds are meant. He says Christ 
‘drew over to him many of the Gentiles,” which 
was not true of him personally when on earth, 
but was true afterwards; yet this way of putting 
it sugared the pill for the Jews. He says that 
Pilate condemned him to the cross “ at the sugges- 
tion of the principal-men among us,” which is a 
very soft impeachment of the Sanhedrim, whose 
frantic violence intimidated the cowardly pol- 
troon. He says again, Christ “appeared to them 
alive the third day, as the divine prophets had 
foretold these and ten thousand other things con- 
cerning him.” To the Gentile, this is a plain ad- 
mission of the fact; but to the Jew, the sarcasm 
thickens in the words I have italicised. Josephus, 
therefore, admitted the facts, and all the facts, of 
the life and death of Christ, and of its mighty re- 
sults in forming a ¢ride which for numbers might 
equal or exceed the natural ¢rzbe of Judah at the 
time he wrote; or, while admitting the facts, he 
put in a predicate of the word ¢ribe, which to 
Jews certainly would carry the idea of sarcasm 
meant as well as expressed. Now this very am- 
biguity is in favor of the integrity of the passage, 
which is so ingeniously written that it shall not 
necessarily offend the Jews nor implicate the his- 
torical faithfulness of the author. 

2, We are told that this passage is seemingly an 
interpolation, because it was not found in several 
early copies of the “ Antiquities,” and that its oc- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 145 


currence in other and later copies throws suspi- 
cion upon its genuineness. 

But on what principle? We know it is much 
easier to erase than it is to interpolate. Josephus 
wrote more for others than for his own people, and 
when a copy of his work came into the hands of 
the Jews, they might have judged this passage 
fitted to popularize the facts they were most anx- 
ious to cover up, and so erased it that it should 
not appear in copies made by Jewish transcribers ; 
while those, and the more numerous, falling into 
the hands of Gentile Christians, would not be so 
mutilated. There is, therefore, no force in this 
objection. 

3. Weare told that this passage was not quot- 
ed by any of the Fathers before Eusebius, who 
wrote A.D. 324, from which time it was found in 
all subsequent copies; and this proves that it was 
an interpolation by him or some other Christian 
writer. 

I regard this as the weakest reason assigned for 
the opinion I am striving to show as unwarranted. 
First, Because many of the writings of the Fathers 
are Jost ; and no one can say that this passage was 
not quoted by some of them. Second, Because 
neither Eusebius nor any other Christian writer 
would put such sentences together in an interpola- 
tion, in some particulars contradicting the Evan- 
gelists, and in others slurring the Christians, and 
extenuating the fact of Jewish violence in the mur- 
der of Christ. TZ/zrd, Because the Roman histo- 
rian Tacitus, who wrote A.D. 110, narrates in his 
own language the main ideas of this passage, which 


146 VEDDER LECTURES. 


he must have gotten from Josephus; and therefore 
Eusebius did not interpolate; or, if not from Jose- 
phus, he must have gotten it from the Roman rec- 
ord, or from a gospel in his own hands; in either 
case, the passage of Josephus is proved in its facts 
to be true. Now it is customary among deceivers 
to evase the truth, but never to interpolate it. 
fourth, Many authors quoted the same words from 
Josephus, besides Eusebius. Whiston enumerates 
twenty-two, from A.D. 324 to A.D. 1480. And, 
aithough they all wrote after he did, it is entirely 
gratuitous to say that they all copied from him. I 
therefore believe the passage in question to be 
genuine, and ought not tobegiven up. But, sup- 
posing Josephus to have been silent on this whole 
matter, about which he had abundant knowledge, 
and which he could not entirely suppress without 
bringing suspicion upon his own reliability as a 
historian, the Roman historians confessedly could 
have had no motive to be silent about the most 
wonderful event of their own or near their own 
day. 

It had been the settled policy of the Roman 
Government to tolerate all forms of religion, so 
long as they did not interfere with their own sys- 
tem of idolatry; and this policy continued until 
it became evident that Christianity was making 
great inroads upon the state religion. It had some 
twenty-five years for a start, and a fair field to 
work in for that time. It had been popularly re- 
garded by Gentiles as a new form of Judaism for 
that length of time, and excited no special atten- 
tion among Roman officials until it came to be 


REVEALED TRUTH. 147 


understood as hostile to every other religious SYS 
tem, and an enemy to idolatry, daily increasing 
its power and success. Then the most violent 
persecution began, and all the power of the state 
was enlisted for its destruction. During a long 
term of years, a mountain of guilt absolutely fright- 
ful to look upon, was rolled up by these officials. 
They soaked their soil with Christian blood > but 
while the followers of Jesus fell by thousands, by 
some mysterious agency they rose by tens of thou- 
sands. Like the oppressed Hebrews, the more 
they were cut down, the more they multiplied and 
grew. This amazing fact begot the proverb— 
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
Church.” 

About thirty years after the crucifixion, and in 
the tenth of Nero’s reign, a great fire occurred in 
the city of Rome. Not long after, by some 
means, it came to be generally believed that the 
odious tyrant himself was the cause of the calamity, 
in order to find a plausible pretext for murdering 
Christians, upon whom he strove to throw the 
odium due to himself; and thenceforward he car- 
ried on a most bloody work of cruelty and crime. 
Some forty or fifty years after, Tacitus published 
his history, A.D. 110, and in it he speaks of this 
conflagration as follows: | 

“They (Christians) derive their name and origin 
from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had suf- 
fered death by the sentence of the procurator, 
Pontius Pilate-—The confessions of those that 
were seized discovered a vast number of their ac- 
complices; and they were all convicted, not so 


148 VEDDER LECTURES. 


much for setting fire to the city, as for their hatred 
of the human kind. They died in torments, and 
their torments were embittered by insult and de- 
rision. Some were nailed on crosses ; others sewn 
up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the 
fury of the dogs; others again, smeared over with 
combustible materials, were used as torches to il- 
luminate the darkness of the night. The gardens 
of Nero were destined for the melancholy spec- 
tacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, 
and honored with the presence of the emperor, 
who mingled with the populace in the dress and 
attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Chris- 
tians deserved, indeed, the most exemplary pun- 
ishment, but the public abhorrence was changed 
into commiseration from the opinion that the un- 
happy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to 
the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous 
tyrant.” 

The most artful infidel that ever wrote thus 
speaks of this quotation, and his authority as a 
historian doubles its value: “‘ The most sceptical 
criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this 
extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this cele- 
brated passage of Tacitus.”—Gzdbdon's Rome, vol. i1., 
p. 399. Now Tacitus knew nothing of the nature 
of the Gospel or its religion. He was a bigoted 
heathen, and took no pains to ascertain the true 
character of those he vilified as “ wretches ;” but 
he was well acquainted with civil history, and in 
no instance has been detected in falsifying facts. 
On the contrary, he shows his disposition to be 
fair, notwithstanding his prepossessions, by say- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 149 


ing that “ Nero, with a view to divert suspicion 
from himself, inflicted the most exquisite tortures 
on those men who, under the vulgar appellation 
of Christians, were branded with deserved in- 
famy.” 

The facts thus set forth by Tacitus have never 
been denied, while they have been abundantly 
confirmed by other writers; and I make the ex- 
tract to show from the mouth of an exemy, the 
plenary proof that Jesus Christ really lived, 
taught, and suffered under Pontius Pilate, pre- 
cisely as narrated in the New Testament. It fur- 
ther shows that he was the author of Christianity, 
which, surviving his crucifixion and rapidly over- 
spreading Judea, had reached and extensively 
prevailed in the Imperial City itself. Although his 
narrative did not require Tacitus to refer to the 
Roman record of Reports of Provincial Gover- 
nors, to which he may have been indebted, yet he 
was well aware that it had been the custom of the 
Home Government to require accurate periodical 
statements, officially sealed, from all such subor- 
dinates of all public affairs within the limits of 
their respective provinces. In accordance with 
this regulation, Pontius Pilate had drawn up a 
statement concerning the trial and crucifixion of 
Christ, with the extraordinary concomitants of 
his life and death, and sent it to be deposited in 
the archives of the Senate. This Roman procur- 
ator, who against his own conscience, and con- 
trary to his own verdict, gave up Christ to the 
ignominy of capital punishment, merely to satiate 
the malice of a Jewish mob by which he was in- 


150 VEDDER LECTURES. 


timidated, had to make the best explanation he 
could of hiscriminal conduct. To this document, 
written shortly after the event, he affixed his own 
signature and seal of office, and it was constantly 
appealed to by the early Christians, who stood up 
in the face of the emperors, officers, and people of 
Rome, calling upon them to search it for the facts 
which sustained their cause, and to produce it for 
the satisfaction of all men; but they never received 
aresponse. Thus Justin Martyr, in his Apology 
to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, written about 
A.D. 140, said: “ It was predicted that our Christ 
should heal all diseases and raise the dead ; hear 
what was said. There are-these words: ‘At His 
coming the lame shall leap as an hart, and the 
tongue of the stammerer shall be clear-speaking ; 
the blind shall see, and the lepers shall be cleansed ; 
and the dead shall rise, and walk about.’ And 
that He did those things YOU can learn from the Acts 
of Pontius Pilate.” —Ch. 48. Now, is it likely that 
Justin would have dared, in his Apology, to direct 
the Emperor to search a document containing a 
record of these things, as above stated, and to 
which he had immediate access, if there had been 
no such document as “The Acts of Pilate’? 
The supposition is incredible, since such temerity 
would have ruined the cause in whose behalf 
this apology was made. Thus too Tertullian, 
in his apology for the Christians, written about 
fifty years later, and addressed to the Roman 
Government, after enumerating his facts, said: 
‘“‘ All these things Pilate did to Christ; and now, 
in fact, a Christian in his own convictions, he 


REVEALED TRUTH. I5!I 


sent word of Him to the reigning Cesar who was at 
the time Tiberius.” Is it possible that Tertullian 
would have made this statement in regard to 
Pilate’s report, if no document of the kind had 
ever been sent by the procurator to the Emperor? 
It cannot be. ‘Search your own public docu- 
ments,” said he. “At the moment of Christ’s 
death the light departed from the sun, and the 
land was darkened at noon; which wonder is re- 
lated in your own annals, and is preserved in your 
archives to this day.” Would Tertullian have 
ventured upon such a declaration if it had not 
been true? The thing was impossible. 

About thirty-five years after Justin wrote, the 
great work of Celsus appeared against Christi- 
anity, called “The True Word.” Origen, some 
sixty years after, wrote a reply in eight books, in 
which, serdatim, he answered all the objections 
urged against the Scriptures and against Christi- 
anity ; but Celsus had not denied the above facts 
about this matter of Pilate’s report. If he had, 
Origen certainly would have answered him; but 
Celsus’ experience taught him that it was not safe 
to deny a fact which must have been true by the 
law of the empire. 

About A.D. 270 another champion appeared on 
the side of Paganism, namely, Porphyry. He was 
esteemed a more powerful opponent than Celsus. 
In attempting to write down Christianity, how 
came it that the mighty Porphyry did not deny 
the statement of Justin, nor meet the challenge 
of Tertullian in regard to Pilate’s report? If no 
such document existed, how easily might the 


152 VEDDER LECTURES. 


writings of these apologists have been over- 
thrown? Can it be believed that such a man as 
Porphyry would have failed to expose the “pious 
fraud,” if these Christians had dared to fabricate 
a fact that could have been shown notoriously 
false ? 7 


Eusebius, A.D. 325, wrote as follows: 


‘The fame of our Lord’s remarkable resurrection and ascen- 
sion being now spread abroad, according to an ancient Eastern 
custom prevalent among the rulers of the nations, to communi- 
cate novel occurrences to the Emperor, that nothing might 
escape him, Pontius Pilate transmits to Tiberius an account of 
the circumstances concerning the resurrection of our Lord from 
the dead, the report of which had already been spread throughout 
all Palestine. In this account he also intimated that he ascer- 
tained other miracles respecting him, and that now having risen 
from the dead, he was believed to be a god by the great mass of 
the people.”—Z. ., 7. 2, ch. 2, Cruse’s translation, 


Eusebius here states the fact of a well-known 
custom with which every governor of a Roman 
province had to comply, and this makes it certain 
that Pilate did send the report spoken of, and that 
he embodied in it the specifications to which the 
early apologists so confidently and so often re- 
ferred. This is a matter which has not received 
the attention it deserves. Clearly it deals a stun- 
ning blow to the advocates of infidelity. We have 
fortunately a fine example of such reports in a 
long official document sent by Pliny the younger 
to Trajan, the Emperor who had appointed him 
governor of the distant provinces on the Black 
Sea, A.D. 105, together with the Emperor’s letter 
of approbation and instructions, They are as 
follows: 


REVEALED TRUTH. 153 


PLINY TO TRAJAN. 


‘Health. It is my usual custom, sir, to refer all things of 
which I harbor any doubts to you. For who can better direct my 
judgment in its hesitation, or instruct my understanding in its 
ignorance? I never had the fortune to be present at any exam- 
ination of Christians before I came into this province. I am, there- 
fore, at a loss to determine what is the usual object of inquiry or 
of punishment, and to what length either of them is to be carried. 
It has also been with me a question very problematical whether 
any distinction should be made between the young and the old, 
the tender and the robust; whether any room should be given 
for repentance, or whether the guilt of Christianity, once incurred, 
is incapable of being expiated by the most unequivocal retrac- 
tion ; whether the name itself, abstracted from any flagitiousness 
of conduct, or the crimes connected with the name, be the object 
of punishment, Inthe meantime this has been my method with 
respect to those who were brought before me as Christians. I 
asked them whether they were Christians ; if they pleaded guilty, 
I interrogated them twice afresh, with a menace of capital pun- 
ishment. In case of obstinate perseverance, I ordered them to 
be executed. For of this I had no doubt, whatever was the 
nature of their religion, that a sullen and obstinate inflexibility 
called for the vengeance of the magistrate. Some were infected 
with the same madness, whom on account of their privilege of 
citizenship, I reserved to be sent to Rome to be referred to your 
tribunal. In the course of this business, informations pouring 
in as is usual when they are encouraged, more cases occurred. 
An anonymous libel was exhibited with a catalogue of names of 
persons who yet declared they were not Christians then, or ever 
had been; and they repeated after me an invocation of the gods 
and of your image, which for this purpose I had ordered to be 
brought with the images of the deities. They performed sacred 
rites with wine and frankincense and execrated Christ, none of 
which things, I am told, a real Christian can ever be compelled to 
do. On this account I dismissed them. Others, named by an 
informer, first affirmed and then denied the charge of Christianity, 
declaring that they had been Christians, but had ceased to be so, 
some three years ago, others still longer, some even twenty years 
ago. All of them worshipped your image, and the statues of the 
gods, and also execrated Christ, and this was the account which 


154 VEDDER LECTURES. 


they gave of the nature of the religion they once had professed, 
whether it deserves the name of crime or error; namely, that 
they were accustomed on a stated day to meet before daylight, 
and to repeat among themselves a hymn to Christ as to a god, 
and to bind themselves by an oath with an obligation of not 
committing any wickedness, but on the contrary, of abstaining 
from thefts, robberies, and adulteries ; also of not violating their 
promise, or denying a pledge ; after which it was their custom to 
separate and meet again at a promiscuous, harmless meal ; from 
which last practice they however desisted after the publication 
of my edict, in which, agreeably to your orders, I forbade any 
societies of that sort. On which account I judged it the more 
necessary to inquire BY TORTURE from two females, who were 
said to be deaconesses, what is the real truth, but nothing could 
I collect, except a depraved and excessive superstition. Defer- 
ring, therefore, any further investigation, I determined to con- 
sult you. For the number of culprits is so great as to call for seri- 
ous consultation. Many persons are informed against, of every 
age and of both sexes, and more still will be in the same situa- 
tion, The contagion of the superstition has spread, not only 
through cities, but even villages and the country. Not that I 
think it impossible to check and tocorrect it. ‘The success of my 
endeavors hitherto forbids such desponding thoughts; for the 
temples, once almost desolate, begin to be frequented, and the 
sacred solemnities that had long been intermitted are now at- 
tended afresh ; and the sacrificial victims are now sold every- 
where, which could once scarce find a purchaser. Whence I 
conclude that many might be reclaimed were the hope of im- 
punity on repentance absolutely confirmed.” 


TRAJAN TO PLINY. 


‘“You have done perfectly right, my dear Pliny, in the inquiry 
which you have made concerning Christians. For truly no one 
general rule can be laid down, which will apply itself to all cases. 
Those people must not be sought after. If they are brought 
before you and convicted, let them be capitally punished ; yet 
with this restriction, that if any renounce Christianity and evi- 
dence his sincerity by supplicating our gods, however suspected 
he may be for the past, he shall obtain pardon for the future on 
his repentance. But anonymous libels in no case ought to be 


REVEALED TRUTH. 155 


attended to; for the precedent would be of the worst sort, and 
perfectly incongruous to the maxims of my government.” 


Gibbon acknowledges these letters to be gen- 
uine, and from them it can be easily believed that 
Pilate’s report was equally explicit with regard to 
Christ, and contained just such an account as the 
aforesaid apologists and others constantly af- 
firmed. Pliny’s letter and Trajan’s answer prove 
that in the beginning of the second century, in the 
remote provinces of Bithynia and Pontus, Christi- 
anity had nearly destroyed Paganism, and the in- 
ference is natural that in the route of its progress 
thither it had made great havoc with the idols and 
temples about which Pliny speaks as “almost 
deserted.” His letter sets forth important facts 
which he had received from those who _ had, 
through fear, apostatized from Christianity, such 
as these: the Christian Church from the first re- 
garded Christ as God; its simple worship was 
addressed to him; it had its sabbaths, officers, 
regular assemblies, and the Lord’s Supper; its 
doctrines and precepts were the same as we have 
them; and real Christians were ready to endure 
death in any form rather than give up their faith 
in Christ. Moreover, it will be seen from this 
letter that Tertullian hazarded nothing when he 
thus testified to the great multitude of Christians 
ALD: 163": 


‘‘We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place 
among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the 
very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum—we have 
left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.” “If such 
multitudes of men were to break away from you, and betake 


156 VEDDER LECTURES. 


themselves to some remote corner of the world, why, the very 
loss of so many citizens, whatever sort they were, would cover 
the empire with shame; nay, in the very forsaking, vengeance 
would be inflicted. Why, you would be horror-struck at the soli- 
tude in which you would find yourselves, at such an all-prevail- 
ing silence, and that stupor as of adead world. You would have 
to seek subjects to govern. You would have more enemies than 
citizens remaining. For now it is the immense number of 
Christians which make your enemies so few, almost all the in- 
habitants of your various cities being followers of Christ.”— 
Apology to the Rulers of the Roman Empire. 


Would the apologist have dared to use such 
language if his facts had been either false or 
mingled with fiction? Who can believe it? 

In the latter part of the fourth century, A.D. 
360, another author undertook to write down the 
Christian religion. This was the Emperor Julian. 
To his voluminous work there were several re- 
plies by Cyril and others, which we have, and 
which contain many large quotations from it. 
Julian was a scholar as well as a statesman, and 
one of the most distinguished of the Roman em- 
perors. His early training had been in the Chris- 
tian religion, but for political reasons he re- 
nounced it and turned heathen. Hence he was 
called “the Apostate.” He very well knew that 
all governors of dependent provinces were 
obliged to make, statedly, reports of all the re- 
markable events signalizing their administrations. 
When he began his work, he had a good know- 
ledge of the New Testament. He granted that 
the history of Christ, as given by Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John, together with the Acts of the 
Apostles, is genuine. He grants their early 


REVEALED TRUTH. 157 


date. He grants the miracles of Christ, and speci- 
fies many of them, only endeavoring to dimin- 
ish the importance of his works; and then enters 
into speculative argument to defeat the claims of 
Christianity. But his reasoning was very im- 
becile, and if it had been more respectable, could 
not have prevailed against his own admissions. 
His confession to the truthfulness of the Chris- 
tian history, by virtue of his varied means and 
qualifications, may well be taken as the united 
verdict of all previous adversaries along with 
himself, because he made use of the same weapons 
of ridicule, and pursued the same method of man- 
aging the argument. Besides, he had before him 
the works of Justin, Tertullian, Eusebius, and 
others, in each of which there was this appeal to 
the report of Pontius Pilate confirmatory of the 
foundation facts of the Gospel. This appeal had 
rung through the empire for more than three 
hundred years, and Julian must have felt the force 
of it. Now if there had been no such report, 
would this bitter enemy have failed to show it? 
Clearly not, because he had every facility of prov- 
ing the falsehood. Instead of adopting this easiest 
and shortest method of confounding the Chris- 
tians, he cautiously passed it over in silence, there- 
by admitting both its existence and the truth of 
all it contained. 

The testimony for the following facts is there- 
fore indubitably conclusive : 

1. The historical books of the New Testament, 
the Gospels and the Acts, are quoted or referred 
to by a series of Christian writers beginning with 


158 VEDDER LECTURES. 


those who were cotemporary with the apostles, 
or immediately succeeding them, and proceeding 
in close and regular succession from their time to 
the present. 

2. That when thus quoted or referred to, they 
are recognized as inspired, as possessing divine 
authority, and as the judge in all questions of re- 
ligious duty or of controversy. 

3. That they were in very early times collected 
into a distinct volume. : ; 

4. That they were distinguished by the names 
by which we know them, and held in profound 
respect. 

5. That commentaries were written upon them, 
different copies carefully collated, and versions of 
them made in different languages. | 

6. That they were received by all orthodox 
Christians, and by many heretical sects, and ac- 
cepted by all as of final appeal in controverted 
matters. 

7. That they were publicly read and expounded 
as authoritative scripture in the religious assem- 
blies of the early Christian Church. 

8. That besides the Gospels and Acts of the 
Apostles, thirteen Epistles ot) <Paul, the: sarst 
Epistle of John, and the first of Peter were early 
received without doubt, by those whose cautious- 
ness created some doubt about the other books 
now included in the New Testament canon. 

g. That the Gospels were attacked by early 
enemies of Christianity, as the books containing - 
the facts upon which the religion was founded. 

10. That many formal catalogues of authentic 


REVEALED TRUTH. 159 


scripture were published, in all of which our 
present sacred histories were included. 

11. That no other books than those composing 
the New Testament as known to us were ever 
accepted as belonging to it. Let it be remem- 
bered we have given only the testimony of the 
enemies, whose silence to the appeals of the early 
apologists is more eloquent than bare admission 
could have been. 

In attestation of the facts and prevalence of 
Christianity as already stated, we have the au- 
thority of TWELVE OF THE GREATEST FOES Chris- 
tianity ever encountered, namely: Tacitus, Jose- 
phus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Pliny the younger, 
Martial, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Lucian, 
Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian the Apostate, whose 
labors were continuous for the first centuries 
with their coadjutors; but they al admitted the 
facts upon which Revealed Truth is based. To 
this may be added the testimony of the Jews as 
found in the Talmuds in twelve places. Matthew, 
James, and John are admitted to have been disci- 
ples of Jesus of Nazareth, to whose name is at- 
tached the most opprobious epithet. The miracles 
of Jesus, such as curing the sick, cleansing lepers, 
and raising the dead, particularly Lazarus, are 
admitted, but imputed to the power of magic. 
Those of his disciples are also mentioned as mat- 
ters of fact. | 

When we turn to the evidence of friends, I can 
only give a few names for want of space. The 
early defenders of the Christian faith were such 
men as Barnabas, Clemens, Polycarp, Irenzus, 


160 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Ignatius, Quadratus, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Ter- 
tullian, Eusebius, with about a hundred and 
twenty other authors within the first five cen- 
turies. In spite of all forms of opposition and 
persecution, Christianity notoriously ascended 
the throne of the Czsars within four hundred 
years, overspread the then known world, uproot- 
ing Paganism as the established religion of the 
Roman Empire, and took its room! 

Such are the historical evidences by which the 
& posteriori argument establishes the integrity of 
the Scriptures and the truth of the religion 
founded upon them in every point. Plainly they 
pile up mountains round about the citadel of Re- 
vealed Truth that infidelity cannot hide from 
view by all the fogs it can possibly create. The 
very line of argument sometimes taken to dis- 
credit them operates with unrelenting power 
against every historical record upon earth of 
more than a century old. It therefore proves 
quite too much, and thus infidelity is shown to be 
a conspicuous failure. I think it is entirely too late 
in the day to make any more formal defence of 
the Evangelists against the aspersions of their 
very sagacious critics. If they think that these 
authors, born and’ bred in obscurity, whom they 
are fond of representing as impersonations of ig- 
norance, have invented the character of Christ 
and the religion of Christianity, I submit whether 
they have not forfeited all claim to be heard on 
any matter of literary, historical, or speculative 
importance. Whether they be professors or 
peasants, an attempt to impose upon the common- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 161 


sense of the world, in earnest or in jest, disfran- 
chises them from voting on the question, “ What 
is truth?” If they sincerely believe that such 
men were able to forecast the future, and to pre- 
dict the prevalence of their imposture all over 
the world in spite of all effort to kill it, the inven- 
tion and the results of it as we know them prove 
these authors to be more miraculous characters 
than that of the hero of their own story ; for it is 
unquestionable that, in spite of their imputed ig- 
norance and obscurity, they have mounted above 
the loftiest flight of genius, and for eighteen cen- 
turies have sustained themselves upon the wing, 
confessedly the admiration of the world. This 
is a standing miracle, growing in magnitude with 
every year of the Gospel’s success, and as such, 
greater than any they have reported. 

Infidels must admit, as Gibbon did, the facts of 
Christianity to be historically true, and so itself 
to be well founded, or attempt to show them no 
facts at all, and so itself to be a baseless fabric of 
opinions. In either case their cause is logically 
ruined, 

For credulity like theirs, then, to turn critic 
upon miracles of such miraculous men only pro- 
vokes the laughter of common-sense. Hence our 
champions of modern infidelity, like Strauss and 
Renan, on this point at least, are quasi-mono- 
maniacs. They seem to have had some little ap- 
prehension of this judgment, since they cautious- 
ly admit there was such a person as Jesus of Naz- 
areth, a great and good man, who had no idea of 
advancing the claims subsequently put forth in 


162 VEDDER LECTURES. 


his behalf by the authors of the Gospels, whoever 
they were; and only contend that the “istorical 
Christ is a mythical character, and that nobody 
knows who were the persons accredited with the 
authorship of the Gospels. As to the first point, 
their theory has been exploded forever by Whate- 
ly, who has used their line of 4 priorz argument 
to prove there never was such a character as Na- 
poleon Buonaparte ; and by Schmucker, who has 
shown that our historical Shakespeare is a myth. 
As to the second point, this theory will not re- 
lieve their difficulty, because it only shifts it from 
four to an unknown number of miraculous char- 
acters who have astonished the world. These 
logical adaptations of their argument show its 
utter absurdity. We know more about Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, than we know about Plato, 
Cicero, Demosthenes, Tacitus, Herodotus, Hor- 
ace, Virgil, or Czesar ; but if want of sufficient per- 
sonal information about the Evangelists be a valid 
objection against the works that go by their names, 
and have always been accredited to their author- 
ship, much more should we object to the accred- 
ited authorship of our commonly received classics, 
and to all other authorship earlier than three 
hundred years old. ; | 
All records, documents, and books, to be under- 
stood, must contain classes of facts for the mate- 
rials of thoughts and theories advanced in them, 
and no matter when, where, or by whom written, 
they essentially carry within themselves evi- 
dences which commend them to the confidence 
- of their readers, by augmenting probabilities with 


REVEALED TRUTH. 163 


the flow of their contents, or prove themselves 
unworthy of it by discovering improbabilities that 
must beget disbelief. It is the province of reason 
by the @ griort process to pronounce in the mat- 
ter. But afterwards, to make herself sure, she 
enters another field of investigation wholly out- 
side of this, and finds a vast amount of circum- 
stantial, collateral, corroborative testimony, either 
for or against it, which it is the province of the 
a posteriori method to collect. By these two pro- 
cesses in any investigation, the mind arrives at 
the moral certainty of discovered truth felt to be 
just as real as the reason itself; for if reasoning be 
not reliable for securing moral certainty of truth 
to reason, then it can answer no purpose beyond 
that of blind instinct. Let any young man of 
good common-sense, but ignorant of history, sit 
down to the perusal of the lives of Napoleon and 
of Washington; he finds in them many startling 
or extraordinary facts, yet possible, probable, all 
converging to the proof of these great men 
having been at the helm of great events. His 
reason @ priort yields to the balance of argument 
against doubts. But to make sure of the truth 
as related in his volumes, he goes outside of them 
to other sources, and by the @ fosteriori method 
gathers a variety of testimony circumstantial, col- 
lateral, and corroborative in the current history 
of France and of the American Union running 
from their days down to his own. Must he not, 
then, by the laws of mind become as sure of the 
existence and influence of these men as of his 
own? Who can doubt it? Nor will these facts 


164 VEDDER LECTURES. 


of history, so well authenticated, lose any degree 
of credibility with the lapse of time. That which 
has been clearly proved to be fact, can never be 
proved to have been fiction. Suppose, two or 
three thousand years hence, another such young 
man should peruse these histories perpetuated to 
his day, would he not arrive, by the same process, 
to the same conclusion? Certainly, for the sim- 
ple reason that the books would be so circum- 
stanced by internal marks and external testi- 
mony, that he could not deny them without 
denying the truth of all history from the begin- 
ning of the world. Now we apply this method of 
investigation to the Scriptures as thousands be- 
fore us have done, and come to the same conclu- 
sion that thousands before have reached, and for 
the reason that it is zmpossible to come to any 
other. Every time a ship crosses the Atlantic, 
there is an additional proof that the science of 
navigation is a true science; and every applica- 
tion of an honest method of reason to Christian- 
ity proves it to be the embodiment of Revealed 
Truth, perfectly adapted to the highest welfare of 
humanity. The only way of arriving at moral 
certainty on any subject is by exhaustive proof 
of matters of fact gathered by both processes of 
reason, and it isa sure way. Thus we are just as 
certain that the world has ever been full of mat- 
ters of fact, as we are that such is its condition 
now ; and we also know that the longer any by- 
gone matter of fact took for its own completion 
and settlement in human belief, the easier does 
the proof of it at any subsequent period become 


REVEALED TRUTH. 165 


powerful in argument. Now revealed truth is a 
matter of fact, which took fifteen hundred years 
for its own completion in well-authenticated 
and well-preserved records; and for nearly two 
thousand years subsequent, has not only estab- 
lished itself in the confidence of tens of thousands 
who have ded for it, and of millions who have 
lived and labored for it, but has outlived its most 
demonstrative enemies in spite of all kinds of 
violent opposition, and in the vigor of strength, 
augmented by the struggle, now appeals to all 
men, as did the Master, “ Believe me for the very 
works’ sake;” and all men are responsible for 
attention to, or neglect of this appeal. 

Pilate, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian have gone 
to their account long since, but unintentionally 
they have left a corroborating testimony to the 
facts of the Gospel that cannot be overturned— 
facts that are proved as strongly as proof can do 
it. And as the doctrines laid by the Scriptures 
upon this foundation clearly define man’s essen- 
tial relation to the divine government, as a moral 
accountable subject destined to endless duration; 
set forth in luminous rays the awful results of 
his sin and guilt, the moral ailments of his nature 
beyond his own means of cure; and the plan of 
redeeming mercy, devised by infinite wisdom, 
executed by infinite love, and fully in working or- 
der for present salvation—a plan by which all his 
legal difficulties and responsibilities are met, all 
his moral necessities provided for upon certain 
well-defined principles at once wonderful in ad- 
justment, satisfactory to reason, positive in assur- 


166 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ance, and securing zow and here and forever a des- 
tiny all the more glorious by virtue of personal 
union through faith in and the suretyship of an 
omnipotent Redeemer—Revealed Truth looms up 
before us as the grandest and most comprehen- 
sive Science that can exist. Therefore infidelity 
is a sinagainst God and a crime against man, the 
blackest in its nature, because the most fearfully 
enduring in its blinding, blasting influence, and 
the most deservedly damning in its ultimate 
issue. ‘Like causes produce like effects.” ‘“ We 
judge of the future by the past,” and “ being fore- 
warned should be forearmed.” These aphorisms, 
begotten of a sore experience, may well be re- 
peated in this connection. Let us look back to 
the greatest conquest infidelity has made in mod- 
ern times. Let us go to the land of Voltaire, 
Volney, D’Alembert, and Rousseau. Their phi- 
losophy gained high eminence in 1793. Infidelity 
was wild with delight. Look at its achieve- 
ments. Their revolutionary legislature, on one 
day, by a formal resolution voted God out of ex- 
istence, or rather declared there ts no God. See 
them, the next day, bowing in mockery of wor- 
ship to a common actress, dressed up for the oc- 
casion, as the “ Goddess of Reason.” See them 
posting on their cemeteries a dismal motto of 
their preposterous creed, “Death is an Eternal 
Sleep,” proclaiming emancipation from the re- 
straints of religion, and freedom of conscience for 
all; yet immediately butchering all who would 
not yield to their principles and laws. The world 
cannot afford to forget that French Revolution 


REVEALED TRUTH. 167 


which has given it the most awful commentary 
upon the nature and effects of Infidelity. This is 
the red feather in its cap, dyed in human blood. 
We therefore say that men who, in the face of 
this great historic disaster, propagate the princi- 
ples that produced it, are the worst enemies of 
the human race, and they who for filthy lucre 
publish and disseminate their poisoning works 
are partakers of their guilt. Let infidelity pre- 
vail in a government like ours, whose stability de- 
pends upon piety and virtue as taught in that 
great palladium of our liberty, the Bible, and our 
government shall never see another centennial. 
The Bible, the open Bible, is the fountain of life 
to the Republic. : 

When we look for the source ot human know- 
ledge, it is not hard to see that the most valuable 
of that which is known comes directly from re- 
vealed truth, or indirectly through a christian- 
ized public sentiment. To be convinced of this, 
we have only to compare the literature and civili- 
zation of the old nations of the earth and that of 
the Jewish people, with the intellectual and moral 
conditions of modern nations. It did not require 
much sagacity upon the part of any visitor at our 
late great national display, honored by every 
nation of any distinction in the world, to discover 
under what influence the greatest national suc- 
cess in material prosperity and usefulness has been 
gained. Who did not see, from a comparison be- 
tween the methods and matters of education, and 
the implements and results of science, under what 
auspices her greatest triumphs had been won? 


168 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Who did not feel creeping over him a sensation 
of pride, as he viewed the vast variety of things 
both ornamental and useful produced by the 
handicraft of our own fair countrywomen, whose 
worthily high elevation is the achievement of the 
Bible? Who could avoid understanding the 
world’s voluntary indorsement of the great truth 
as the Bible defines it, ‘Godliness is profitable 
unto all things’? Yes; to the Bible, and the 
God of the Bible working through it, are we in- 
debted for that form of civil and religious liberty 
that has hitherto blessed our people and our land, 
from the cradle of infancy rocked by his own 
hand, to the highest attainments of national man- 
hood. To this repository of revealed truth is the 
world indebted for all correct sentiments in the 
sciences of government, morals, and religion. 
Be sure, there is a class of men of some intellec- 
tual strength now asserting themselves most ab- 
surdly in the denial of this position, but the un- 
fairness of their arguments is demonstrable from 
themselves, indebted as they are for the favora- 
ble circumstances of their own training within 
the atmosphere of Revealed Truth, whose sun has 
warmed them into the ability to sting the mother 
of their blessings. What would have been the 
attainments and the influence of our Spencers, and 
Tyndalls, and Darwins, and Huxleys, with a 
crowd of pretentious parasites feeding upon their 
poison, had they been born and brought up in the 
heart of Turkey, or of Thibet? We would smile 
at the credulity of a man who should attribute his 
enjoyments of sight to his own eyes, denying the 


REVEALED TRUTH. 169 


necessity of the light by which alone he can use 
them. So we regard the vain boasting of such sci- 
entists as the vagaries of sophists, who attribute 
their attainments to their own resources indepen- 
dent of the light and power of Revealed Truth 
that has shone upon their path, and begirt them 
with happy influences all the way through life. 

It should appear even to them that common 
honesty ought to lead every fair-minded man of 
their intelligence to an expression of recognition, 
if not of gratitude, for the inestimable blessing 
of Revealed Truth. Human experience has been 
ample enough to prove its value within the do- 
main of mere intelligence. It is the only source 
whence the earliest facts of history are derived. 
We have only to compare its wonderful contents 
in this respect with the absolute dearth of infor- 
mation in all other writings to discover that, for 
the first two thousand years of the world, we 
have not any thing at all imparted, except what 
Moses has made known; and for the next two 
thousand years we have in what little there is of 
profane history fact and fable so intermixed, that 
it is of no practical value at all. For the whole 
of this period we are indebted to the Bible, whose 
incidental notices of the affairs of the world were 
only designed to elucidate the historical connec- 
tion with it of that people God formed, governed, 
and kept in a peculiar way, that they might receive 
and transmit revealed truth to the future nations 
of the earth. We know the fact by the outcome 
of their peculiar national life, 

During the first period mentioned, when men 


170 VEDDER LECTURES. 


began to multiply, the rudiments of nations were 
arranged, and many interesting facts are briefly 
given; during the second, the details of human 
history are so fragmentary, so interspersed with 
polytheistic fable, that were it not for the works 
of old prophecy, as found in our volume, civil 
history, down to some seven hundred years before 
Christ, would be nearly a blank. But all this 
service to intelligence is as nothing when put by 
the side of those great moral truths which have 
been given for the benefit of mankind. By them 
we know the attributes of the true God, and the 
great reality of his government, together with 
the necessities and destiny of the human race. 
We can unriddle that mighty enigma of the mix- 
ture of good and evil which so perplexed and 
confounded the old philosophies ; we can account 
for the disorders of nature, and point out the 
sources of those streams of wretchedness and woe 
that come like burning lava from a volcano never 
at rest; we can impart to those not in posses- 
sion of our key of knowledge the secret of an 
all-wise Providence, controlling and reigning in 
the wild storms of human conflict that agitate the 
world. Other sciences account for physical facts 
and wonders in the world, but revealed truth is 
a science which accounts for the moral phenom- 
ena of the world of mind. It tells us what we 
might have been, what we are, and what we shall 
be. It opens a perfect, original plan of unspeak- 
able mercy for the salvation of all who receive 
and obey it, showing us how human nature be- 


REVEALED TRUTH. E71 


came that blasted thing that it is,and the method 
of its recovery by Him who, as incarnate virtue, 
bled and died, imputatively guilty, in the room 
of the lost—O Lord! what a fact is this !—and 
that for the fabrication of legal righteousness, to 
answer the demands of broken law, and for pro- 
curing a method of moral purification that shall 
answer the inward necessities of the soul, He is 
offered as God’s unspeakable gift, whose recep- 
tion secures to every believer eternal life, now 
and here, no matter what the badness of his 
character may have been, or what the moral depth 
of ruin he may have reached. It uncovers the glo- 
ries of heaven and the damnation of hell, with 
the Cross of Christ between them, by which the 
veriest wretch may gain the one and escape the 
other. It offers to every man whom it reaches 
the price of redemption, upon his embrace of 
“the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of 
the world.” To that Cross was attached the wire 
of a heavenly-constructed telephone, over which 
that dear voice “ It is finished”’ has rung through 
succeeding centuries in the Lord’s Supper; and 
the hardest heart that hears it must break. Hence 
this volume of revealed truth, by fully meeting 
the deeply-felt wants of humanity, unlike all 
others, and like a thing of life, provides for its 
own diffusion, and fulfils its own wonderful decla- 
rations in this particular. This explains the won- 
der of its preservation against all adverse efforts. 
The tooth of time has not been able to gnaw 
away a single sentence of it, the machinations of 


172 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ingenious wickedness have all proved signal fail- 
ures. The efforts of pretended friends to cloister it 
in concealment, and of open enemies to crush it be- 
neath the foot of malice, have been equally impo- 
tent. Wit and satire, laws and persecution, sword 
and flame, have alike all failed. The many books 
of infidelity have perished, with the exception of 
a few, which modern infidelity has much ado to 
keep alive. Hence its change of tactics. But 
here is zhe Book, now in larger circulation than 
ever, translated and being translated into all the 
languages of the earth, and by what it has done 
proves what it will do. This fact is not equalled 
in the history of any other book. Long since, 
judging by human productions, it ought to have 
perished by the force of adversities no other 
book has ever passed through. God is its pre- 
server no less than its author. Deny this, and 
the Bible, with its history, becomes the most em- 
barrassing of all miracles. Adapted to improve 
the condition of man everywhere, it will civilize 
the savage and save the sinner. It is the bread 
of life, and he who casts it out of his regard for 
the poisoned aliment of infidelity, shall find, to 
his unending horror, that his mistaken choice 
will consign him to the pains of eternal starva- 
tion. | 

I have said that infidelity is not only dsbelief 
but mzsbelief. The one involves the other by the 
laws of mind, As it is impossible for the animal 
appetite to be indifferent to the things necessary 
to be eaten for the support of life, so it is impos- 


REVEALED TRUTH. 173 


sible for the soul to be regardless of its own 
spiritual wants; it must assert itself, and will 
clamor for their satisfaction. There never was a 
time when man was without religious sentiments 
of some kind, though for ages he has been without 
science, and this has been owing to an instinct 
of his moral nature. By that he is and must con- 
tinue a religious being, sure to think, feel, and act 
in conformity with the moral constitution upon 
which his consciousness as man is dependent. 
If his mind be under the control of disbelief, it 
must also be under the control of misbelief. Infi- 
delity to truth and fidelity to error necessarily 
co-exist. When we speak of modern infidelity, we 
. simply mean an old enemy with a new uniform in 
anew position. All the erratic theories of the 
present day are resurrections, not new creations. 
Having cast off their grave-garments, they appear 
in new attire. Atheism, Deism, Pantheism, Mate- 
rialism, Positivism, Socialism, Necromancy, or 
Spiritualism, and all other zsms of our time, have 
their counterparts in the old sophomore age of 
heathenism. Long before our Saviour’s day, the 
representatives of these opinions, who lived with- 
out the light of Revealed Truth, were such men as 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and others too 
numerous to mention. In the last century, their 
representatives were such men as Hobbs, Blount, 
Collins, Woolston, Tyndal, Chubb, Bolingbroke, 
Hume, Voltaire, and others. These men played 
off their arguments from the ground of meta- 
physics, and were badly beaten. The most sub- 


174 VEDDER LECTURES. 


tile opponent was Hume, and the most ingenious 
was his argument against miracles, which, how- 
ever, was so well answered by George Campbell 
that Hume was forever silenced. Modern infidel- 
ity seeks to oppose the Scriptures and Christianity, 
and uphold these old errors by anewly-constructed 
argument upon what is taken to be scientific dis- 
covery, which overthrows the veracity of the 
Scriptures; but I think it will fail. The Greek 
Sophists thought they had discovered and used 
the key of knowledge in their aphorism that 
“Man is the standard of truth in all things;” but 
they were mistaken. The leading names among 
the Sophists of the Socratic age were enrolled 
among the promoters of scepticism. Pythagoras, 
disgusted with the pretenders of his day who 
called themselves Sophists, adopted a more mod- 
est name—Philosophist. But now again the syno- 
nyme of Sophist is appropriated by men who 
propound learned opinions implying belief of the 
aforesaid aphorism, equally disgusting with those 
which sickened Pythagoras. The ancient Sophist 
and the modern materialistic Scientist are as much 
alike as two peas of the same pod, and both of 
them will come under Paul’s description—profess- 
ing themselves wise, they have become otherwise. 

The discussion of some points of great interest, 
like that of the resurrection of Christ, have been 
here omitted for the twofold reason, that space 
would not allow it, and that by making good the 
points of the general subject selected, the former 
would be easily accepted. 


REVEALED TRUTH. 175 


Revealed Truth having been authenticated and 
established by indubitable proof, and plenty of it, 
as an absolutely perfect science, no other science 
can be in conflict with it, because truth cannot 
oppose truth; but of late years, zheoretical geolo- 
gy has proclaimed to the world that the discov- 
eries made by scientists in the strata of the earth 
force the conclusion that the Mosaic record of 
the creation is untrue; and hence it follows that 
the Bible, thus deprived of its foundation-facts, 
though venerated for its antiquity, must fall as 
the accredited vehicle of a revelation from God 
to man, binding upon the human conscience and 
necessary for the instruction, guidance, and sal- 
vation of the soul. Several of its friends, having 
made geology a special study, agree with these 
scientists as to the age of the earth being vastly 
greater than that apparently assigned it by 
Moses; they have therefore written volumes to 
reconcile the Bible with their geological theory, 
and in the attempt have advanced opinions and 
invented. interpretations which, in my judgment, 
have strengthened the hands of infidelity, and 
weakened the faith of a multitude of Christians 
who have been sorely embarrassed and distressed 
by their speculations. Infidelity, by this instru- 
mentality, is encouraged and is notoriously on the 
increase. With this persuasion, I crave indul- 
gence for an attempt to show that the cause of 
the Bible and of Christianity has been greatly 
and needlessly injured by some of their friends. 
I propose to devote the last two lectures of this 


176 VEDDER LECTURES. 


course to the consideration of this subject, not 
for the sake of opposition, but for the sake of 
those whose perplexities are increased rather 
than diminished by the works of men who have 
undertaken to reconcile the Bible with this z/eo- 
retical geology, instead of showing, as they were 
bound to do, that practical geology is in harmony 
with the Bible, and that cheory, founded on geo- 
logical fact, is not in conflict with Gen. 1, liter- 
ally understood. 


sls SA Grd Ga ca Shag a ae 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY AND THE MOSAIC 
COSMOGONY. 


oe 


Definition of Science—Christian geologists and their works—Conflicting 
theories—Prof, Huxley's sarcasm—Difference between practical and 
theoretical geology—Quotation from Hugh Miller criticised—Assump- 
tions and conflicting opinions—The proof their theories need, not 
attainable—Young Christians victimized to infidelity—Testimony of 
Prof. Hitchcock as to infidel tendency—The plain meaning of the 
Mosaic account—Hugh Miller's theory answered—Dr. Dawson's 
argument on the six days of creation answered—Prof. Sedgwick’s 
charge of ‘sinful indiscretion ’’—The use made by infidelity of these 
theories — Quotation from a recent infidel work— Dr. Sedgwick’s 
‘sinful indiscretion” applicable to himself—Theories contrary to laws 
of nature, and shown to be absurd—Prof. Hitchcock’s reasoning un- 
reasonable. 


A SCIENCE is a certain knowledge of a class of 
facts and of comprehensive general principles 
within a form of explanatory correlation. Its re- 
sults prove its own integrity. One science can- 
not be in conflict with another, for the reason 
that truth is never at war with itself. It therefore 
cannot be undermined or overturned. Exclud- 


178 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ing the uncertainties of hypotheses, it claims the 
confidence of absolute reliance. 

Such is the science of Revealed Truth, whose 
foundation facts and governing principles are laid 
down by Moses, and recognized as he laid them 
by every other writer of the sacred Scriptures. 
It is a homogeneous system, no part of which 
can be disturbed without general derangement. 
Some of these facts, and not the least important, 
are physical facts relating to the creation of the 
earth, and the divinely given historical detail of 
procedure in its construction and completion. 
We are informed that this occupied the period of 
six days. 

Within the last fifty years a goodly number of 
naturalists, having devoted themselves to the 
special study of geology, have published many 
treatises on that subject, and have laid the world 
under great obligation by their valuable labors 
and beneficial discoveries. For all this, due grati- 
tude is ungrudgingly rendered by every appreci- 
ative and generous mind. It is to be regretted, 
however, that many of them have so far mistaken 
their own discoveries as to bring them forward 
in conflict with the facts given by Moses, indorsed 
by Christ, and accepted by all whose inspired 
writings compose the canon of Revealed Truth. 
These geologists justify themselves in this onset 
by urging facts of their own discovery, which 
either ruinously modify or totally set the former 
aside. Among these are certain ministers of the 
Gospel, whose “ scientific’”’ labors have been more 
or. less extensively used by appropriation in the 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 179 


service of modern infidelity, and, so far as argu- 
ment is concerned, fairly used, I am sorry to think, 
for the purpose of assailing Revealed Truth, the 
business of whose other friends it is to see that 
they shall not be successfully used for that pur- 
pose. Nothing better could be fairly expected 
from the labors of its open enemies, whose most 
effective and destructive weapons have been fur- 
nished them gratuitously by Christian geologists, 
who must explain this matter as best they can to 
the Master. To me it is perfectly amazing how any 
man can coolly claim that he makes reconciliation 
between Revealed Truth and geological theory by 
making the former bend to the latter. Thus the 
Rey. Dr. Buckland says of himself and co-laborers 
that “they do not impeach the judgment of those 
who have formerly interpreted (the Mosaic nar- 
rative) otherwise, and in this respect geology 
would seem to require some little concession from 
the /iteral interpretation of Scripture.” In this 
apparently modest claim there is a clear admis- 
sion that theoretical geology sets itself against the 
literally interpreted facts of Scripture, as given 
by Moses and indorsed by Ghrist :-and..that: in 
this respect they must yield just so far and so much 
as the wisdom of Christian geological natural- 
ists shall dictate. In this melancholy attitude 
they stand, the unintentional but most efficient 
allies of the modern impugners of God’s word. 

Thus Dr. D. McCausLanp writes (“The 
Builders of Babel,” p. 7): 


‘‘The geologist has, from the stones, clays, and gravels that 
form the crust of the globe, compiled a history of the divine 


180 VEDDER LECTURES. 


modus operandi in the formation of our earthly abode, and eluci- 
dated the order in which the various forms of animal and vege- 
table organisms with which it has been furnished came into 
existence. The comparative philologist has, in like manner, 
from words and grammar that lay unheeded around, like the 
stones of the geologist, traced the pedigrees of the human families 
of the world to their respective sources” (the predecessors and 
contemporaries of Adam). ‘“ By the former, therefore, we can 
test the Mosaic record of the creation, and by the latter, the pri- 
meval history of Adam’s race, preserved in Genesis,” 

‘* For centuries all Christendom, with few exceptions, believed 
that God had made the world and all things in it in a period of 
six natural days. The Bible was supposed to have stated such 
to be the fact, and few believers conceived that there could be 
any doubt upon the subject. The science of geology instructs 
us as to the mode in which our globe was formed, and the order 
in which its vegetable and animal organisms came into ex- 
istence.” . . . ‘“‘It proves the truth and inspiration of the 
Mosaic record, subject only to the condition that we read the 
word ‘day’ in ¢hat chapter as indicating a long geological 
period of time, and not a mere natural day of twenty-four hours. 
And accordingly, there being satisfactory evidence within the 
pages of the Bible that the Hebrew word may be so understood, 
few persons of enlightened understanding have hesitated to 
adopt that vexdering of the word ‘day,’ and to appropriate the 
irresistible evidence of inspiration that it carries with it”! 


On the other hand, Dr. JOHN PYE SMITH, “On 
‘the Relation between the Holy Scriptures and 
some Parts of Geological Science,” repudiating 
this theory, holds another, viz., that the creation 
announced in Genesis 1: 1 was the creation of the 
whole material universe; and that that creation 
dates innumerable ages defore the six days’ work 
recorded in GenesisI, was begun. He says: 


‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 
This sublime sentence stands at the head of the sacred volume, 
announcing that there was an epoch,a point in the flow of infinite 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 181 


duration, when the whole of the dependent universe, or what- 
ever portion of it first had existence, was brought into being ; 
and that this commencement of being was not from pre-existent 
materials. It was acveation in the proper sense, not a modelling, 
or new-forming” (p. 227). 

‘‘An hypothesis was resorted to about thirty years ago by 
several men of eminence in geological knowledge—that the six 
days of creation may be understood as periods of time of indefi- 
nite, though of very great length. Finding in frequent instances 
of Scripture use, what is indeed the case in all languages, that 
the term day is put metaphorically to denote any portion of time 
which has been marked by the accomplishment of some great 
event or series of events, it was concluded that the same figura- 
tive application might be resorted to here. 

‘“ Upon the very face of the document it is manifest that, in the 
first chapter the word is used in its ordinary sense. For this 
primeval record is not a poem nora piece of oratorical diction, 
but is a narrative in the simple style that marks the highest 
majesty. It would be an indication of a deplorable want of 
taste for the beauty of language to put a patch of poetical diction 
upon the face of natural simplicity. But one would think no 
doubt could remain to one who had before his eyes the conclud- 
ing formula of each of the six partitions, and evening was, and 
morning was, day one; and so throughout the series, repeating 
exactly the same form, only introducing the ordinal numbers, 
till we arrive at the last, ‘and evening was, and morning was, 
day the sixth.’ 

‘*If there were no other reason against this, which I may call 
device of interpretation, it would appear quite sufficient to re- 
quire its rejection that it involves so large an extension in the 
liberty or license of figurative speech, Poetry speaks very 
allowably of the day of prosperity or of sorrow, the day of a 
dynasty or an empire; but the case before us requires a stretch 
of hyperbole which would be monstrous. A few hundred, or 
even thousands of days turned into years would not be suffi- 
ciently ample to meet the exigency of geological reasoning ; while 
this way of'proceeding to obtain the object desired is sacrificing 
the propriety and certainty of language, and producing a feeling 
of revolt in the mind ofa plain reader of the Bible” (pp. 171-4). 


Here we have the two theories in conflict, each 


182 VEDDER LECTURES. 


of which, having a number of advocates, professes 
to reconcile the Mosaic account with theoretical 
geology; but both of which fail in this particular, 
as I shall strive to show. 

In contrasting this geological theory with the 
Mosaic record, Prof. Huxley observes, in his lec- 
ture at Nashville, on the “Testimony of the 
Rocks”: 


‘‘T need not say that this view of the past history of the globe 
is a very different one from that which is commonly taken. It is 
so widely different that it is absolutely impossible to effect any 
kind of community, any kind of parallel, far less any sort of re- 
conciliation between the two.” 


And in his lecture at New York upon “The 
Untenable Hypotheses,” he speaks thus sarcasti- 
cally of the admissions of Christian geologists, and 
of their theory of “reconciliation ”’: 


“In the first place, it is not my business to say what the 
Hebrew text contains, and what it does not ; and in the second 
place, were I to say that this was the biblical hypothesis (creation 
in six literal days), I should be met by the authority of many 
eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who in re- 
cent times have absolutely denied that this doctrine is to be 
found in Genesis at all. If we are to listen to them, we must 
believe that what seems so clearly defined as days of creation— 
as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no 
mistake—that these are not days at all, but periods that we may 
make just as long as convenience requires. We are also to 
understand that it is consistent with that phraseology to believe 
that plants and animals may have been evolved by natural pro- 
cesses, lasting for millions of years, out of similar rudiments. A 
person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand by and 
admire the marvellous flexibility of a language which admits of 
such diverse interpretations. Assuredly,in the face of such con- 
tradictory authority upon matters upon which one is competent 
to form no judgment, he will abstain from any opinion, as I do; 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 183 


and in the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking 
of this asa Mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon 
the authority of the highest critics, and even of dignitaries in the 
Church, that there is no evidence whatever that Moses ever 
wrote this chapter, or knew any thing about it.” 


This is a fair hit, and well deserved; going to 
show what is the natural tendency, not to use 
harsher terms, of tampering with the words of 
inspiration for the accommodation of the persist- 
ent but unfounded claims of those who present 
themselves the best ‘‘men of science,” and, at the 
same time, prove themselves ungodly men at best. 

There is a great difference between Practical 
geology and Theoretical geology, which most 
people overlook, because this distinction has not 
been prominently brought out as necessary to a 
right view of the whole subject. Practical geol- 
ogy means the facts of the rocks of the earth 
hitherto discovered, with their mineral consti- 
tuents, the fossil remains found in them, their 
relative position in the strata of the earth’s crust 
as ascertained by inspection, the disruptions and 
other phenomena of the strata, together with 
whatever is observed in the composition of earths 
and subsoils wherever practical work has been 
done. Here, let it be observed, that geological 
research is necessarily confined to far less than a 
third of the surface of the globe. The water 
surface compared with that of the land is about 
in the proportion of two and three-fourths to 
one; the former covering about one hundred and 
forty millions of square miles, and the latter about 
fifty-two millions; and when we consider the 


184 VEDDER LECTURES. 


countries covered by the frigid zones, the vast 
inaccessible mountain districts, the hot malarial 
districts, the deserts, the morasses, the vast for- 
ests with various impediments in the way of 
geologists to reach great sections of the earth, it 
will be easily apprehended that their researches 
have hitherto been confined to far less than one- 
fourth of the globe’s surface; and that their di- 
rect penetrations into its bowels are like a few 
small and short pin-holes here and there into an 
imaginable bale of cotton eight thousand miles 
thick. Let this be kept in view while we get at 
the meaning of theoretical geology. 

This comprises a ¢heory or the theories that are 
constructed to account for the facts above indi- 
cated. It does not discourse about the strata 
themselves or their phenomena, but it speculates 
about the sources of the materials composing the 
strata; about the times and agencies of their 
formation and superposition ; and about the pro- 
cesses of natural law, atmospherical, chemical, and 
mechanical ; first, in fixing them; and second, in 
disrupting them into the wildest confusion of 
intermingled elements. Thus it will appear that 
the hard work of practical geology is not at all 
~ necessary to the easy work of theoretical geology. 
The former comprises veal facts all readily ad- 
mitted, the latter, swpposztztious facts all as readily 
rejected. For example, the prevailing theory 
treats, as I shall show, of broken-down worlds, 
of old continents and successive mountain ranges 
of granite, and of other materials supposed to 
have been the comminuted matter out of which 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 185 


the present earth is formed. Now, since nothing 
of this kind is discoverable in the strata, it is 
plainly an assumption, and a profound knowledge 
of practical geology is not necessary to qualify 
one to show that fact, or to confute that theory ; 
for the most intimate knowledge of all the ma- 
terials of nature, and of the laws regulating her 
processes, can not throw a single gleam of light 
upon the questions raised by theoretical geology, 
as, for example, whether this earth was originally 
a comet, or a mere body of gas, or a ball of fire; 
nothing within the range of practical geology 
can determine or even elucidate such questions; 
nothing can be determined from the strata them- 
selves whether the world was formed six thou- 
sand or sixty thousand years ago; and since so 
small a part of it has come within the observa- 
tion of practical geology, it is all the more ap- 
parent that a person with only book-learning may 
be perfectly competent to refute the theory by 
showing its inherent contradictions, impossibili- 
ties, absurdities, and bad tendency. 

The question in regard to the age of the earth 
depends for its solution either upon facts in the 
strata themselves, compelling us to certain un- 
avoidable conclusions, or upon divine testimony. 
If the strata show us that each of them is the 
residuum of an old world by indubitable proofs 
of disintegration through the agency of natural 
forces operating with their present measure of 
slowness, then we must accept the theory ; but if 
it can be shown that such was not their origin, 
and that a comparatively short time was required 


186 VEDDER LECTURES. 


for their superposition by the agency of natural 
forces in quick operation, then there is no ground 
for assigning to the earth a longer existence than 
that given in the first chapter of Genesis literally 
interpreted. With practical geology, therefore, 
we can have no quarrel, because the works of 
God do not contradict the word of God ; but with 
the Theoretical, there is a quarrel forced upon us 
mainly by those who think they are doing God 
service in making his word yield to the demands 
of a theory which we propose to show will not 
bear investigation. Among them is Mr. Hugh 
Miller, who, from the fancied eminence of his po- 
sition asa scientist in this department, proclaims 
to the world his own superior judgment thus: 


“ The clergy as a class suffer themselves to linger far in the 
rear of an intelligent and accomplished laity, a full age behind 
the requirements of the time. Let them not shut their eyes to 
the danger which is obviously coming! The battle of the evi- 
dences will have as certainly to be fought on the fields of phys- 
ical science as it was contested in the last age on that of the 
metaphysics. And on this new arena the combatants will have 
to employ new weapons, which it will be the privilege of the 
challenger to choose. The old, opposed to these, would prove of 
little avail. In ages of muskets and artillery, the bows and ar- 
rows of an obsolete school of warfare would be found greatly 
less than sufficient in the field of battle for purposes of assault or 
defence.” —Footprints of the Creator, p. 45. 


In this pretentious paragraph reference is had 
to the solid arguments of such men as Lardner, 
Leland, Leslie, Faber, Butler, Campbell, Paley, 
Watson, and many others; “ bows and arrows,” 
which, however, effectually slew the Humes, Gib- 
bons, Voltaires, and a host of like spirits who led 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 187 


the van of infidelity in their day, and whose fossil 
remains may be found among the literary débris of 
the last century. They were so badly beaten that 
the champions of the same cause in our day have 
changed position in the renewal of the battle, and 
now charge upon Christianity with Mr. Miller’s 
weapons, and others like them, forged in the 
literary workshop of our Christian geologists. It 
is a great mistake, however, to assert that the bat- 
tle of the evidences must be refought upon sci- 
entific ground, and by artillery from behind the 
earthworks of geology. These evidences are gar- 
risoned within impregnable strength, and nothing 
can now invalidate the claims of Revealed Truth 
to the dignity which belongs to it, as the most 
comprehensive, important, and perfect of all the 
sciences, for the obvious reason that it has God 
Almighty for its author. It is alsoa great mis- 
take to suppose that the armament of infidelity, so 
greatly improved by Mr. Miller and his associate 
scientists, will be effectual to knock the cosmog- 
ony of Moses into fragments, unless its defenders 
be equipped with better weapons than their old 
bows and arrows. If it shall turn out that these 
“muskets” are air-guns, and this “artillery” a park 
of wooden cannon, we can still trust to the bows 
and arrows of olden warfare; and so the battle now 
invited by Mr. Miller himself against the Script- 
ures from infidelity on geological ground, will be 
shown not so big with stormy elements after all. 
His prediction is helped on to its verification by 
his own books, no less than by others of open hos- 
tility and of various degrees of merit, all of whose 


188 VEDDER LECTURES. 


authors rejoice in his argument, which, however 
fallacious, they can use with greater effect because 
its author was an avowed Christian, and at the last 
a distracted suicide. 

The present popular geological theory of the 
vast age of the earth has been so bolstered by 
the works of certain clergymen, who have made 
geology a specialty, that it is with diffidence that 
I class it as conspicuous aid to the cause of mod- 
ern infidelity ; not that I am in any doubt as to 
my own position, nor in any fear of inability to 
justify it, but because I am reluctant to appear as 
against them; yet I must, for my own perusal of 
modern infidel works persuades me they have 
greatly subserved the purpose of the enemy. As- 
suming the theory as indubitably true which as- 
signs millions or billions of years to the age of 
the earth, the reverend geologists have attempted 
to show two things—namely, that the six days of 
creation spoken of by Moses do not mean six days 
at all, but six periods of indefinitely long dura- 
tion; or, as an alternative, that millions or billions 
of years have intervened between the first and 
second verses of the first chapter of Genesis, in 
which worlds upon worlds have been built up and 
broken down, out of the débris of which our pres- 
ent earth was constructed at some time or other. 

Thus an author speculates : 


‘* As an ivory ball may be seen, not only in public museums 
but in private collections, within another ball, and within this 
there may be a series of balls, enclosing a minute central ball ; 
and as each successive ball from the central one to the outer- 
most may be carved bya rare ingenuity, so that each one may 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 189 


be of a different pattern, we may here find a resemblance to the 
earth. The surface on which we tread is but the covering of 
one world; but it is easy to point out, as we descend in its ex- 
amination from depth to depth, a world within a world, and 
then another, and another, and another, each one having plants 
and animals peculiar to itself, until we reach that central 
world, which is most gvodadly a world of liquid fire, and on 
whose surface can be traced no signs of life.” [Probably not !] 
—First Week of Time, p. 40. 

“To this original ball there was, at the pleasure of the Creator, 
at one period, so to speak, an accretion of matter. After con- 
tinuing this at its surface in a state of fusion for a longer or 
shorter period, the temperature of the globe would be dimin- 
ished by the radiation of its heat into the surrounding space. 
As the superficial part ceased to be fused, it would become 
solidified ; the globe would then have a covering—as an egg 
has a shell, or an orange a peel—and within would be the mat- 
ter remaining in fusion. 

“On this, in the course, so to speak, of eternal ages, would 
accumulate the azozc strata, in which no life is discoverable; the 
next accretion would be, in following ages, the sa/gozoic strata, 
containing the most ancient forms of life; in ages still succeed- 
ing, the mesozoic strata would be heaped on them, containing 
less ancient forms; while to these would be added the omozoic 
Strata, containing the most recent forms of vegetable and ani- 
mal life.” —Zéid., p. 57. 


Very fine theory, only it is not shown to be true. 
Having ascertained, as they think, enough of the 
facts of geology, many have set their wits to work 
in the construction of theories to account for 
them ; but because they have begun with assump- 
tions for these theories, there is not a shadow of 
justification to be found by the facts upon which 
they are professedly established. Instead of being 
established upon logical deductions from well as- 
certained premises, they are undemonstrated and 
undemonstrable assumptions, resting upon nothing 
that can afford even a probability within the do- 


190 VEDDER LECTURES. 


main of well established geological fact, and this I 
shall proceed to prove. 

Now, Iam no geologist beyond the study of 
books; but this does not prevent me from a thor- 
ough comprehension of the system. I believe in 
practical geology, thankfully accepting all the 
well attested facts in our learned volumes, whose 
authors give them with a clearness of descriptive 
power and with such precision of statement as 
enable me to do my own thinking, and this was 
the predestined end in view by the writers. Iam, 
however, well aware that they are impatient of 
contradiction, as to the matter of theory; and 
seemingly imagine that because they have fur- 
nished the facts they must furnish the theory as 
well, and that all who accept the one must hold 
to the other. This may be pardoned in the en- 
thusiastic who do the hard work of laborious re- 
search, but it is intolerable in those who, within 
arm-chairsand indulging indreamy ideal construc- 
tiveness, which they mistake for profound specu- 
lation, and strangers alike to the handle of the 
geological hammer and to the practical toil of 
geological explorers, presume to tax others with 
inconsistencies, who are as well qualified as them- 
selves to judge as to what is truth. Thus Dr. John 
Pye Smith, an arm-chair geologist, fretfully says: 

“It must appear a very strange thing that the persons who 
have given such distinguished proof of their general ability, and 
of their acuteness of penetration in this particular department of 
scientific study ; who possess the resources of those auxiliary 
sciences which are the best grounds in physical inquiry, and the 
most stern checks upon sanguine minds, to guard them against 


precipitance or inaccuracy in drawing conclusions ; it must ap- 
pear a strange thing that such persons should labor under an 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. IQI 


obliquity of judgment so peculiar and so obstinate that they can- 
not see the just conclusion from premises which they have ob- 
tained by so much expense of time and fortune, of mental and 
bodily toil.”’—P. 176. 

To this lugubrious complaint the reply is found 
in the various, variable, and conflicting opinions 
notoriously found in treatises which have been 
published to enlighten the people on this subject. 
Geological facts, like any others, may surely be 
taken as facts, and made the ground of reasoning 
by those who reject what they think they can 
prove unwarrantable inferences from them, as 
well as by those who accept them as the basis of 
sound principles. Suppose I should find, far down 
in the strata, a bone of a foot long, with a fossilized 
lump, big as my fist, of curious appearance, with 
protrusions like the prongs of a molar tooth, and 
with the description should furnish my solemn 
opinion that by the evidence of comparative an- 
atomy this bone must have been part of a human 
under-jaw ; and this lump, something like a quid 
of tobacco, which some unfortunate pre-adamite 
Brobdignag was chewing when suddenly sub- 
merged by an execrable vomit of mud from a 
volcano ; must you accept my ¢heory because you 
credit the facts of my finding? No; you exclaim, 
it is wild and absurd. Precisely, and for the same 
reason I accept the facts, but reject all theories not 
logical sequences from them, but assumptions pre- 
sented under the color of necessary deductions. 
What are the assumptions? In addition to those 
already specified, they refer : 

(1) To the sources whence the materials of the 
strata of the earth’s crust were derived. 


192 VEDDER LECTURES. 


(2) To the zature of the forces by which they 
were borne down from primeval granite moun- 
tains to their present position. 

(3) To the operation of those forces, in the ar- 
rangement of the strata, as uniformly found; and 

(4) To the fossil remains of vegetables and ani- 
mals entombed within them. 

Thus there are four sources of argument from 
which theoretical geology derives its fallacies for 
the vast and unimaginable age of the earth, which 
I shall point out in the sequel, as briefly as I can, 
to show that their general argument fails to estab- 
lish their theory, and that they have not proved 
that the age of the world is more than six thou- 
sand years, while these theories meanwhile confute 
themselves. 

In order to sustain these theories, geologists 
must prove not only that the materials of the strata 
were actually drawn from the sources to which 
they refer them, but that they could come from 
no other sources. They must grove that they 
were borne down and arranged in a horizontal 
position by these forces acting, as they say, with 
no greater energy than that by which they now 
act not only, but that these forces could not have 
acted differently or with greater energy at any 
time than at the present day. They must grove 
that vegetable and animal life could have been 
supported under different circumstances than 
those now found essential to their existence. If 
they cannot verify their theories by such proof 
arising from the facts themselves as shall show 
that we are necessarily shut up to the adoption — 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 193 


of them, it will be manifest that no regard can 
be claimed for them as truthful presentations of 
rational cosmogony. But, hitherto, wo such proof 
has been furnished. heir assumptions are not jus- 
tified by the facts themselves. They are specula- 
tions, and not deductions; and not only so, but 
their inferences as to the immense ages required 
for the formation of the strata are not drawn from 
their facts, but from hypotheses as to the causes 
and processes of the separate formations of these 
strata, and the supposed long periods of inac- 
tivity intervening between the times of their 
superposition. It is then obvious that Mr. Mil- 
ler’s predicted battle is ridiculous rather than seri- 
ous; and if we can show that the theories to 
which we have referred are inconsistent with the 
facts themselves, incompatible with the laws of 
nature, and self-contradictory, then this threat- 
ened battle will appear more absurd than ridic- 
ulous. 

For myself, I may be permitted to say, that were 
I compelled to accept either of these theories, 
logical consistency, as I view it, would drive me 
from the Mosaic record into some quagmire of 
skepticism, and I can therefore sympathize with 
many of our youth who, by these means of instruc- 
tion, have been not only unsettled in the biblical 
principles of an early religious education, but have 
become the victims of our modern infidelity. 
Nearly thirty years ago, Dr. King, of Glasgow, in 
his book on geology, holds the following language: 
“In my intercourse with young men of good edu- 
cation, I have found more of them disquieted in 


194 VEDDER LECTURES. 


their minds, if not unsettled in their religious 
principles, by the results of geological investiga- 
tion, than by any other difficulties attending re- 
vealed truth.” He witnesses to a fact of common 
occurrence all over Christendom where these the- 
ories have been commended to the confidence of 
Christians by such works as I have had occasion 
to notice. Thousands probably have been thus 
driven from their confidence in the scriptures, not 
by avowed infidels, but by men who, though Chris- 
tian ministers, have written to show that we need 
not be disturbed even if Moses be convicted of 
not telling the exact truth in the first of Genesis, 
and of absolute and needless misstatement in the 
seventh chapter ! 

Such cases are multiplying, and:-where does the 
responsibility rest? I am therefore alike within 
the limits of my profession and of my duty in an 
attempt to expose the mischievous fallacies that 
underlie the theories spoken of, and productive 
of such sad results. peer : 

Rev. Prof. E. Hitchcock, in the Bzddical Reper- 
tory for 1835, wrote as follows: | 

“The principles of geology have long since been regarded not 
only as hostile to Revealed Truth, but as favorable to atheism— 
and the geologists must indeed confess that a number of their 
ablest writers, some time ago, such for example as Hutton, did 
intentionally or unintentionally give a quite atheistical aspect to 
some of their most famous theories. And some of them, at the 
present day, exhibit in their works so entire a neglect of every 
allusion of a religious character, as to excite pain in every pious 
mind, and lead many to the conclusion that geology must be the 
favorite resort of irreligion. Under such circumstances, it will 


not do for geologists to deny the irreligious tendency of their 
favorite science, unless they can show positively that it contains 


FHEORETICAL GEOLOGY. — 195 


principles of a contrary tendency. We propose to undertake the 
task.” 

This was written nearly fifty years ago. Have 
matters mended with regard to the “tendency” 
aforesaid, in consequence of the work of the wor- | 
thy professor and the labors of others who think 
with him on this subject? Let the scientists of 
our day answer. So far from it, I shall show that 
their works, while containing much that is valu- 
able for the purpose proposed, have nullified it all 
by conceding all that infidelity cares to demand ; 
so that for all practical effects the cause of Re- 
vealed Truth has suffered by their well-meant, 
but ill-timed and sadly mistaken efforts. All the 
so-called “principles” which they lay down as 
confirmatory of Revealed Truth, are denied more 
stoutly now than ever by infidels, who refer to 
the history of geology as “the favorite resort of © 
irreligion,” and claim that Christian geologists 
have confirmed them in their position. 

The first chapter of Genesis begins a literal his- 
tory of literal facts, without any figure of speech 
to ornament its language, which is not the less 
scientific on that account. Out of the general 
statement that “In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth,” others flow, unfolding the 
process of successive creations. _The second verse 
of that record is linked on to the first by a copula- 
¢zve conjunction, which is used as a /ivk at the be- 
ginning of all the verses narrating creative acts, 
Thus we have a chain of facts not broken, but 
linked on to the first one specified—* In the be- 
ginning God made the heaven ”’—which does not 


196 _ VEDDER LECTURES. 


necessarily mean the whole of the universe, but 
the orbs within reach of the naked eye, and sub- 
sequently spoken of with regard to their relations 
to our earth, which was brought into being envel- 
oped in total darkness. Now the beginning of this 
work can no more be separated from its immedi- 
ate continuance, as indicated by the copulative, 
by any supposable intervening arrangements and 
disarrangements, than the end of it can be referred 
to any period of time subsequent to its declared 
completion. The very first recorded act of crea- 
tive power brought into existence the earth in 
total darkness, and the immediate second act was | 
the creation of light, which God called DAY; and 
therefore was not of any other quality than solar 
light, because nothing but this can make day. And 
when Moses said, “the evening and the morning 
were the first day,” he must be held as saying that 
the first half of the day was the period of the first 
darkness thatrested upon the face of the deep 
when the first creative act occurred; otherwise 
Moses must be held as having contradicted him- 
self in the record of the moral law, in which we 
find this language: “In (or within) six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth” (which must mean 
the heaven and earth of Gen. 1). Each day’s 
work, then, began in the evening, or first twelve 
hours of darkness, and was completed at the close 
of the morning, or first twelve hours of hight. It 
is the obvious intent of the historian to date 
every work to the day of its performance. All 
that preceded the morning of the first day belong- 
ed to the work of that day; therefore Moses in- 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 197 


cluded the matter of the first verse in the state- 
ment of the first day’s work, according to the 
written form of the moral law. 

“The earth was without form, and void.” That 
our present identical earth is meant cannot be 
denied, and the succession of day and night proves 
that it then revolved on its own axis as it does 
now. When God said, “Let there be light,” this 
fiat does not indicate the creation of the body of 
the sun, for its existence was cotemporary with 
that of the earth, by the first creative act; but 
it was light itself, sunlight, let in upon our globe; 
hence it was called day; for no other light is of 
the same quality or can produce the same effects. 
‘The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou 
hast prepared the light and the sun.” (Ps. 74: 16.) 

The next creative act produced the atmosphere 
by which the light should be evenly distributed, 
and heat as well. It was of course a luminous 
expanse, and evaporation then would make clouds, 
to the upbearing of which the atmosphere was 
indispensable. This great circumambient body 
of air is also necessary to the operation of life 
and to the visibility of things. God called the 
atmosphere Heaven. 

Upon the third day He gathered the waters 
into seas, and caused the dry land to appear—not 
bare rocks, but productive land—which he called 
earth, and stocked it with the various forms of 
vegetable life in maturity and progressive growth. 
The land was thrust up from the water by an act 
of Omnipotence, and was diversified with moun- 
tains, valleys, and plains much in the same way 


198 VEDDER LECTURES. 


as now. The laws of nature cannot be accred- 
ited with this wonderful effect, because they were 
not yet established, and their Great Author was 
alone competent to work on so grand a scale, and 
thus he prepared the earth for the great variety 
of animal life he was yet to bring at once into 
maturity of being. 

On the fourth day the creative act was ex- 
pended upon the sun, moon, and other bodies; 
and upon the adjustment of the earth to them; 
so that they should determine days and nights 
and seasons, in all their variableness, over the 
entire earth, in making it everywhere fit for the 
production and sustentation of vegetable and ani- 
mal life. The sense is quite obvious: “Let the 
luminaries [for such is the original] in the firma- 
ment of heaven for dividing between the day and 
the night be for signs, and for seasons, and for 
days, and for years: let them be for light-bearers 
(Heb.) in the firmament of heaven to give light 
upon the earth. And it was so. And God made 
the two luminaries—the greater for ruling the 
day, and the lesser for ruling the night, w7tk the 
stars also.” The creative acts of this day were 
for astronomical adjustments to the uses required 
by the earth. 

On the fifth day the various forms of animals 
peculiar to ocean and air were spoken into being. 

On the sixth day were made the animals pecu- 
liar to the land, and the culminating act of the 
whole was the creation of man. 

Such is the simple, clear, unembarrassed state- 
ment of Moses. “ These are the generations of the 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 199 


heavens and the earth when they were CREATED, 
in the day that the Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens.” Now, when the divinely- 
inspired historian wrote this wonderful history, 
he wrote that he might be understood; but the 
Hebrew people, for whom he immediately wrote, 
well knew that the word day, inclusive of night, 
meant a period of twenty-four hours. God called 
the ight day, and they had no other term of lan- 
guage by which to designate a solar day, and 
everywhere in their scriptures it is so used and 
must be so understood, unless otherwise indi- 
cated. To suppose then that Moses used this 
term with any other sense than that which he 
knew they naturally and necessarily must put 
upon it, to imagine that he employed it in a 
jigurative sense, when he knew they must under- 
stand it in a Uteral sense, in a simple narrative of 
plain facts, where no figure of speech is found, 
is to accuse him of unfaithfulness as a historian 
and of duplicity as a man; when, upon every con- 
- sideration, there could have been no motive for 
either. No one can help seeing this, and no one 
can avoid the conclusion that, if Moses so wrote, 
then there is, by the inspiration of God associated 
with the dishonesty of his instrument, rottenness 
in the very foundation of revealed truth, and rot- 
tenness pervading the whole structure as well. 
Infidels are not slow nor slack in perceiving and 
using the advantage given them in this particular. 
By the history it is plain that creation began with 
the first creative act during the evening or first 
half of the first day; then the primeval darkness 


200 VEDDER LECTURES. 


was chased away by the second act, which was 
the creation of light; and that light was denom- 
inated day; and that this term must have meant 
what it now means is clear from the narrative of 
the fourth day’s acts, where the day is so defined 
that no question should have ever arisen so pre- 
posterous as that which geological theory has 
originated. An attempt to make it mean a period 
of ¢xdefinite duration throughout the first chapter 
of Genesis, and yet a period of twenty-four hours 
in three verses of the same chapter (14, 16, 18), 
without any notification of change in signification, 
is unworthy of serious refutation. 

But Mr. Miller says: 

“It has been held by accomplished philologists that the days 
of the Mosaic creation may be regarded, without doing violence 
to the genius of the Hebrew language, as successive periods of 
great extent; and certainly, in looking at my English Bible, I 
find that the portion of time spoken of in the first chapter of 
Genesis as six days is spoken of in the second chapter as one 
day. True, there are other philologists, such as the late Pro- 
fessor Stuart, who take a different view. But then I find this 
same Professor Stuart striving hard to make the phraseology of 
Moses ‘fix the antiquity of the globe,’ and so, as a mere geolo- 
gist, I reject his philology.”—‘‘ I would in any such case at once, 
without hesitancy, cut the philological knot, by determining that 
that philology cannot be sound which would commit the Scrip- 
tures to a science that cannot be true.”— Zhe Two Records, p. 24. 


It would be hard to find in any competent 
writer a greater manifestation of self-sufficiency 
and arrogance. Confessedly ignorant of philol- 
ogy, and not perceiving the difference between - 
scientific principle and arbitrary assumption, he 
tells the young men of a Christian association that 
rather than give up his unsupported theory he 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 201 


would violate the well-established laws of lan- 
guage by which the meaning of it can only be 
made certain; that rather than believe that Moses 
fixes the antiquity of the globe, “he would cut 
the philological knot at once, and without hesita- 
tion,’ which ties up the language to such a mean- 
ing! What a marvellous exhibit of capability to 
pronounce an exegetical opinion! What a rare 
petrefaction of self-complacency! How the in- 
fidel applauds such an utterance from the mouth 
of an avowed Christian! It was a great pity that 
this greatly magnified geologist had not known 
something about figures of speech, for in that case 
he would have seen that the word day in Genesis, 
second chapter, as in multitudes of other places, 
is used by synecdoche for ¢zme,; a part for the 
whole. Whenever this figurative appropriation 
of the word is made, due notice is always given 
by qualifying terms or phrases. Thus in Genesis 
2:4; ‘“These are the generations of the heavens 
and of the earth WHEN they were created, in the 
day that the Lord God made the heavens and the 
earth.”” What can be clearer than the indication 
of the figure of synecdoche by the adverb of 
time? So in other places, ‘a day of darkness” 
means a time of darkness, long or short; ‘a day 
of calamity” means a time of distress; ‘a day of 
prosperity” means a prosperous time. The term 
in such connections can never be misapprehended, 
unless by such interpreters as are accustomed to 
cut philological knots. The figurative sense un- 
mistakably proclaims itself in all such passages. 
Wherever the word day is found nakedly in any 


202 VEDDER LECTURES. 


connection of narrative, without textual explica- 
tion as aforesaid, it a/ways means a period of twen- 
ty-four hours. So it stands in the first chapter of 
Genesis throughout; it can mean nothing else, 
except where it is clothed with qualifying terms 
as just shown, and then its use is always by synec- 
doche. I must sift this matter. 

While it is graciously admitted that the Al- 
mighty was competent to make heaven and earth 
in six natural days, as it is seemingly affirmed in 
the record of the Moral Law, and that, conse- 
quently, this “ theory” involves no absurdity; yet, 
it is said, since the strata of the earth’s crust 
have been shown to have been superimposed 
upon oneanother by the forces of nature acting as 
slowly as they now do, it is indubitably clear that 
myriads of ages must have elapsed, in the nature 
of things, between the time of “the beginning” 
and the formation of Adam. Hence the Mosaic 
cosmogony must be brought into harmony with 
geological science. But this is taking for granted 
the very thing to be proved. Geological theory 
is not synonymous with geological science ; Moses 
may be in perfect accord with the latter, and in 
perfect opposition to the former without discre- 
pancy. I'hey who contend for the aforesaid theory 
seem to have no suspicion of any possible fallacy 
lurking in their own argument, and hence they pro- 
ceed very coolly to violate the very first principle 
of interpretation, essential to the comprehension of 
language, in forcing a meaning upon Gen. 1, no less 
absurd in exposition than it is dangerous to Chris- 
tian faith and ruinous to the fact of revelation. 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 203 


Of this there are many examples, out of which, 
on account of its fulness, I select the argument 
of Dr. J. W. Dawson, Principal of McGill Col- 
lege, Montreal, as found in his third lecture of 
the “ Morse Foundation Lectures,” 1874, to show 
how utterly unwarrantable such expedients are; 
and that, upon the supposition of its admissibility, 
there is no revelation in Gen. 1,—nothing more, 
nothing better, than allegory and myth. 

I only state what is familiar to every one when 
I say that there can be only two kinds of meaning 
to a word or sentence, the “feral and the figura- 
tive. Every one understands every word or 
phrase read or spoken by or to himself in its ht- 
eral primordial sense, unless there be a jigure ex- 
pressed or implied. This rule is the first letter 
of the alphabet, in the science of philology, and 
it is clearly a rule without exception, because ab- 
solutely necessary to our knowing what is meant 
by words and forms of speech. Especially is this 
true in a simple narrative of facts. Now the first 
chapter of Genesisis such anarrative. Simplicity 
stands out in every sentence. There is not a fig- 
ure init. It professes to state naked facts during 
the progress of the creation, and the whole zzme 
taken in the creation. Every word, therefore, 
must be understood in its natural, plain, prosaic 
meaning. It cannot be otherwise understood 
without destroying revelation, since it can never 
be known what is meant to be revealed should 
the above rule be disregarded in the case of a 
single word, for the obvious reason that if one 


204 VEDDER LECTURES. 


word may be put to the torture, so may every 
other in the narrative. 

Dr. Dawson says: “The perfectly indefinite 
phrase, ‘in the beginning,’ places no limit in back- 
ward extension of time to the commencement of 
God's creative week. But the six days seem to 
limit the period occupied in the arrangements of 
the earth and the solar system.” This is clearly 
an°assumption. There is not a single “ perfectly 
indefinite phrase” in the Word of God. Riven 
out of their natural connections, many may be so 
called, but they will be miscalled, because un- 
fairly dealt with, as in this instance. Who does 
not see that it would not exhaust the ingenuity 
of the materialist to show that this declaration 
went far to prove the eternity of matter ? 

He moreover stoutly contends for the meaning 
of gon, or an age of indefinite duration, which 
the science of geology requires us to attach to the 
word day in Gen. 1; but he seems to have for- 
gotten that the decision of this question belongs 
to the science of philology exclusively, and that 
geology has no more to do with it than the sci- 
ence of navigation. He therefore goes on to 
enumerate all the arguments that have been in- 
vented to sustain his view in the interest of theo- 
retical geology, as follows: 

‘‘ 1, The Hebrew word for day does not necessarily mean a 
natural day. In Gen. 1:5 it is used in two senses: the earlier 


creative days preceded the institution of the natural day; and 
in Gen. 2: 4, the whole creative week is called one day.” 


But this cannot be so, for the following rea- 
sons: (1) It is a pure assumption. If the only 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 205 


Hebrew word for a natural day does not neces- 
sarily mean a natural day, then there is no word 
in that language descriptive of it. So far then as 
this word is concerned, there is no revelation; be- 
cause it cannot be certainly known what is re- 
vealed by it. (2) If the earliest creative days pre- 
ceded the institution of the natural day, then the 
figurative use of that term preceded its Zteral use, 
which is sufficiently preposterous. (3) If the ear- 
‘liest creative days preceded the natural days, and 
the same word is used with a double meaning 
without notification, then the Mosaic account is 
chargeable with gross dishonesty ; but if Moses was 
honest he could not have used language in sucha 
way; and if God revealed facts, it cannot be sup- 
posed that he would have allowed his servant to 
render his revelation ambiguous, and so nullify it 
by such dishonest writing; and since there is no 
intimation of difference between “ the earlier cre- 
ative days” and “the natural day,” upon the face 
of the record, the whole thing is a fiction. (4) 
“Tn Gen. 2: 4, the whole creative week is called 
one day,” says the Doctor; but my Bible does not 
read so; it says, “when they were created in the 
day,” so that the adverb of time with the definite 
article are purposely used to show that the literal 
is here supplanted by the figurative sense. It 
is amazing how such a statement could have 
been made. 

‘€2, Many internal difficulties occur in the hypothesis of 
natural days. One of these is the interval which in chapter 2 


appears to have occurred between the creation of the man and 
that ofthe woman. Others arise from the difficulty of replenish- 


206 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ing the earth with plants and animals in the course of a few nat- 
ural days.” 

But we must not speak of difficulty with regard 
to God, for “ with God all things are possible.” 
(1) The flow of the narrative was stopped at Gen. 
2:8, for the description of the garden which had 
been formed for the habitation of man, and re- 
sumed again at verse 15; and man was in Eden 
when woman was formed. No serious difficulty 
here. (2) The fifth verse informs us that all plants 
and herbs were produced in full perfection, and 
did not grow from seed; so of animals, they all 
sprung into being at the fiat of Jehovah. No se- 
rious difficulty here, because God makes instant- 
ly the first parentage of all living things, and these 
generate Successors. 


‘<3, In Psalm 90, attributed to Moses, and certainly written in 
the style of his poetry in Deuteronomy, one day of Jehovah, re- 
lating to human history, is said to be a thousand years ; relating 
to creation it must be much longer.” 

This is an amazing statement, and a very feeble 
attempt to compel Moses to testify to the modern 
doctrine of theoretical geology. (1) In Psalm go 
the words of Moses are: “ A thousand years in 
thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and 
as a watch in the night.” Clearly there is not 
here the remotest allusion to “ one day of Jehovah, 
relating to human history.” No such day is said 
to be “a thousand years ;” but the comparison is 
between a long and a short period, as known to us, 
to show that there is no ‘ime to measure God's 
existence, as it does ours; and therefore not only a 
day, but a small part of a night is to him what a 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 207 


thousand years is to man. How any one could 
so miss the sense of a plain passage is only to be 
accounted for by an evident great anxiety to 
make out a case. (2) The following inference 
will be seen to be simply preposterous: “ relating 
to creation, one day of Jehovah must be much 
longer than a thousand years’’! 

“‘4. The seventh day is not said to have had a morning and 
evening, nor is God said to have resumed his work on the eighth 
day. Hence the seventh day is the period of man in which we 
still live. Our Saviour sustains this view of God’s Sabbath in 
his remarkable exposition, ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work.?" 

“ Ex nihilo nihil fit.” Two xegative premises can- 
not produce one fosztive conclusion. (1) Because 
there is no mention of morning and evening to the 
seventh day, which term isthe same with that de- 
scriptive of the previous six, each of which is di- 
vided into morning and evening, that does not 
prove thatit was different from the constitution of 
the other days. If it did, it would be a bad argu- 
ment for the geological theory, which requires that 
each day shall be considered an indefinite time. 
(2) We are not permitted to work on God’s Sab- 
bath. Ex. 20:10. But if that be the period of 
man in which we live, and not a natural day, then | 
no man should ever have worked from the time 
of Adam until now, and no man has ever kept 
the Sabbath of the Lord! (3) Because God is 
not said to have resumed work on the eighth 
day, that does not prove that he did not. Our 
Saviour says that he did, though the work was 
of a different kind. “My Father worketh hitherto, 
and I work.” 


208 VEDDER LECTURES. 


‘© The fourth commandment, as explained by Moses, requires 
the supposition of long creative days. It cannot be meant that 
God works six natural days, and rests on the seventh as we do ; 
but it may be intended on God’s seventh day we should have en- 
tered on his rest, and that the weekly Sabbath is an emblem of 
that rest lost by the fall, and to be restored in the future.” 

The whole of this is no less wonderful than 
fatal to the theory for whose establishment it is 
intended. Whoever heard of a plainly written law 
requiring a supposition 2? Where has Mosesever “ ex- 
plained” the fourth commandment? Nowhere ; 
for the reason that it sufficiently explains itself. 
Where does he explain it so as to require the suppo- 
sition that the creative days were long periods, or 
“@ons’ 2? Not in the verbiage of the fourth com- 
mandment surely. That reads, “Six days shalt 
thou labor, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of 
the Lord,” etc., and the reason assigned for rest 
is this: “In six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, and rested the seventh day.” . Now, to say 
that the seven days jivs¢ mentioned are /iteral days, 
and the seven days second mentioned are figura- 
tive, or no days at all, but cons, and that, in a 
legal document admitting of no figure of speech 
at all: and that this transition from one meaning 
to another of the same word in the same verse, 
without any notice of it, is to heap dishonor not 
only upon Moses, but upon God himself, who 
wrote this law with his own finger upon a table of 
stone. ‘It may be intended,” I offset with, “It 
may zot be intended.” One balances the other so 
far as argument is concerned. 


“6, This explanation has the support of the writer of the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews, whose argument in his fourth chapter has 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 209 


no force unless on the supposition that God entered into a rest 
of indefinite duration, which man lost by the fall, retaining only 
the week’s Sabbath as a shadow of it.” 


Equally unfortunate is the claim that the argu- 
ment of the fourth chapter of Hebrews is point- 
less, unless it be allowed that the author of it be- 
lieved in this theory of geological speculation ; 
for (1) it is nowhere taught that God entered 
upon a rest of indefinite duration when he ceased 
from creative work, but just the contrary. Moses 
represents God as speaking thus (Ex. 29: 17): 
“The Sabbath of rest, it is a sign between meand 
thee ;” and then says, “ For in six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day 
he rested and was refreshed,” or, as it might be 
rendered, took breath. This must of course be in- 
terpreted anthropopathically, and isa clear dec- 
laration that a period of unlimited duration was 
not required for his ‘taking breath” after finish- 
ing the creation, and that he rested but fora short 
_ time, and then resumed work of another kind, ac- 
cording to the declaration of Christ, ‘‘ My Father 
worketh hitherto,and I work.” (2) The object of 
Paul in said chapter was not to set forth the du- 
ration of God’s own period of rest, but to exhibit 
the nature of that spiritual rest in heavenly hap- 
piness of which God was the author, and which 
he bestows upon the obedient ; hence he shows 
that the rest spoken of was not the rest of the 
Sabbath, nor the rest of Canaan, both of which 
the disobedient and gainsaying people of Israel 
did enjoy ; but the rest of heaven, from which the 
rebellious were excluded. Hence the apostle’s 


210 VEDDER LECTURES. 


argument is not subject to the aforesaid criticism. 
(4) This representation strips the weekly Sabbath 
of the authority of positive enactment in the ear- 
lier age, and would make it a mere Jewish insti- 
tution, and thus by proving too much destroys 
itself. 


‘‘7, There is a good reason to believe that the use of the 
Greek word aiones, with reference to the creative days in Heb. 
chapter I, verse 2, and in Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 11, refers 
to the creative days as indefinite periods, and that these passages 
should be translated in accordance with this view, while we have 
this authority for rendering the passage of Genesis 1 by the word 
@on, rather than by the word day.” 

Thus this famous argument, so strongly relied 
upon, tapers down to weakness. There is no 
more authority for translating yom, day, by con, 
age, than for supplanting it by o/am, the Hebrew 
for eternity. It is a wonderful assumption, and 
well deserves the bitter sarcasm of Huxley, which 
I have quoted, as showing how all such efforts 
play into the hands of the enemies of Revealed 
Truth. If the only word for a natural day in 
the Hebrew language, when first used in Genesis, 
may mean, not a natural day at all, but an “on,” 
who does not see that the science of biblical phil- 
ology is an absurdity ; and that revelation becomes 
impossible ; since its plainest terms may be made 
to mean any thing that any ingenious errorist may 
devise ? 

Such is the ground for the assertion that 
aiones, in the above passages, refer to the creative 
days as indefinite periods. Let us see how they 
read with this substitution. Heb. 1:2, God “hath 
in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, by 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 211 


whom also he made the figurative days, the zzdef- 
inite periods.” Eph. 3: 11, this reads in the com- 
mon version: ‘According to the eternal purpose 
which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord ;’ 
but, by the proposed improvement, should read: 
‘‘ According to the purpose of the indefinite periods 
which he purposed in himself.” Very fine! 
Moreover, if the term day in Gen. 1, may be 
taken to mean an allegorical day, then the works 
of each may be taken to mean allegorical works; 
because allegory once admitted into a plain de- 
scriptive narrative must be allowed to cover the 
whole of it, and thus Moses would be satisfac- 
torily disposed of in the estimation of Prof. Hux- 
ley and his co-laborers.. But since there is noth- 
ing in the geological strata of the earth, or in any 
geological fact that can be advanced as unmistak- 
able proof of this theory, it is entirely baseless, 
because a manifest assumption, unscientific, un- 
philosophical, unphilological, and absurd. 

The author of “The First Week of Time” is 
an arm-chair geologist, agrees with Prof. Sedg- 
wick, and thus nullifies the day theory (pp. 82): 

‘‘It was long since suggested that a day, thus mentioned, 
might mean an indefinite period; and this notion has been 
eagerly seized by some geologists (Hugh Miller and others) from 
a praiseworthy desire to show the accordance of the words of 
Moses with the physical phenomena of the earth. But, unhap- 
pily for them, if the words of Moses be carefully examined, it 
will be found that none can be more clearly and definitely op- 
posed to such an hypothesis. He says, for instance, that ‘God 
divided between the light and between the darkness ;’ the word 
employed denoting an entire separation, as it does when it is 
said, ‘The vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and 
the most holy.’ (Ex. 26: 33.) No separation could be more 


212 VEDDER LECTURES. 


complete than that which took place when God divided the light 
from the darkness, or, in other words, separated the day from 
the night. 

‘‘ Again, to pass from the Mosaic record to physical facts, 
will those who speak of a day being millions of years, or a ‘mil- 
lennium of centuries,’ show us, in the face of nature, that there 
have been equally lengthened periods of light and darkness? 
If, in Greenland, where the sun is below the horizon for six 
monthsat atime, vegetation is scanty, composed chiefly of mosses 
and lichens, and animals are few, what would have been the con- 
dition of this globe if there had been a period of even six millions 
of years without the shining of the sun? Where is there, then, 
from the equator to the poles, and from the present surface to 
the extremest depth that has been reached, the slightest trace 
of such a statc—a state in which no plant or animal could live? 
Paleontology lifts up its voice against the vaunted theory, as- 
tonishing us, as we have seen, by its details of the abundance 
and the varieties of animal and vegetable life, and, consequently, 
by its proof that the day described by Moses is a xatural day.” 
‘‘He actually uses it in the same sense in the Pentateuch more 
than six hundred times; while it is employed more than four- 
teen hundred times by the other sacred writers. 

‘‘From the division ‘ between the light and between the dark- 
ness ;’ from the word expressly employed by Moses to denote 
a day; from his pointing it out as ‘one day ;’ and from his still 
further describing it as consisting of ‘an evening and a morn- 
ing,’ it is seen that the period of which he speaks cannot, by any 
possibility, be an indefinite period or millions of years, but that 
it is exclusively that precise space of time which is occupied by 
one revolution of our globe on its axis.” 


Mr. Miller’s “‘ muskets and artillery,” therefore, 
are but formidable names given to harmless 
toys, and the gunners behind them may stand as 
long as they please, making faces at the defenders 
of the Mosaic cosmogony, with their “bows and 
arrows.” Itis all that they can do. Among his 
“accomplished philologists” is Rev. Mr. Cony- 
beare, of England, like himself, an eminent geolo- 
gist, who says rather timorously : 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 213 


‘“We may perhaps, without real violence to the inspired 
writer, regard the period of the creation recorded by Moses, and 
expressed under the term of days, not to have designated ordi- 
nary days of twenty-four hours, but periods of definite but con- 
siderable length.” 


And further, that: 


‘“‘Those who embrace this opinion will of course assign the 
formation of the secondary strata, in great part at least, to the 
days of creation ; and we have the authority of several divines 
for such an interpretation.” 


But, on the contrary, Rey. Prof. Sedgwick, an- 
other eminent geologist, declares these divines, 
and all others of their opinion, guilty of a 

“‘ Sinful indiscretion”—‘‘ who have endeavored to bring the na- 
tural history of the earth into a literal accordance with the book of 
Genesis, first, by greatly extending the period of time implied by 
the six days of creation, and secondly, by endeavoring to show 
that under this new interpretation of its words, the narrative of 
Moses may be supposed to comprehend and describe in order 
the successive epochs of geology.”—Discourse on the Studies of 
the University of Cambridge, 1833. 


Now, let us see what this “sinful indiscretion” 
amounts to in the service of infidelity. I have a 
small work in my possession called the “ Irrecon- 
cilable Records,” by “ Pror.”’ WM. DENTON, au- 
thor of “Our Planet: Its Past and Future,” in 
which he gives the names of our Christian geol- 
ogists who have taken upon themselves the task 
of reconciling Genesis with speculative geology, 
and from quotations out of their books has shown 
that, by their admissions and methods of reason- 
ing, the Bible is a huge falsehood. He _ has 
proved that these harmonizers have shown the 
Bible and their theoretical geology to be hope- 


214 VEDDER LECTURES. 


lessly at variance in every particular of the Mo- 
saic cosmogony; so that out of the hands of its 
own advocates modern infidelity has received its 
most formidable weapons. I have no hesitancy 
in saying that if any young man of unsettled re- 
ligious principles, and of ordinary intellectual 
proclivity to investigation, should read the fair, 
common-sense deductions drawn from these so- 
called harmonizers, he would, in my judgment, 
become a confirmed infidel, without the special 
preventing grace of God. These works of Revs. 
Dr. Buckland, Dean Conybeare, Prof. Sedgwick, 
Dr. Pye Smith, and their cisatlantic coadjutors, 
Drs. Hitchcock, Thompson, and others, have done 
immense harm and no good by their unfounded 
and injurious speculations. It is with profound 
regret that I find myself compelled thus to speak ; 
but if I speak at all, [ must thus speak, because I 
have read the arguments of infidelity derived 
from their writings, and have met young men so 
damaged by these arguments, against which they 
could not reply, that they avowed disbelief of the 
Bible on account of them. Who does not see that 
if Moses, the type of Christ, has falsely stated the 
facts of creation, and embodied that statement in 
the written moral law, that Jesus Christ, the anti- 
type and indorser of Moses, may as reasonably 
be rejected? I will not ask any one to take on 
trust my unsupported statement as to this matter, 
but will quote briefly from the book I have men- 
tioned, written in the interest of infidelity. Says 
the writer in question : 


“The Bible, we are told, is from God. It is all true, all di- 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 215 


vine ; given to man to be his unerring guide. He who made the 
universe made this book; he who wrote his name in blazing 
suns upon the sky, wrote this Bible, or inspired men to write it, 
who infallibly recorded what he desired that man should know.” 


This is represented as the creed of the aforesaid 
harmonizers, and the author proceeds to show 
how they make it out. In his notice of Dr. J. P. 
Thompson’s work, “Man in Genesis and Geol- 
ogy,’ where there is learned speculation about 
the first words in the Bible, he asks: 


‘‘But when was this beginning ?. Our modern would-be har- 
monizer of Genesis and geology assures us that ‘there is here 
no limitation of time, and therefore the expansion of astronomi- 
cal and geological eons, cycle upon cycle, finds here the most 
ample scope. There was time enough in that “ beginning” for the 
evolution of the entire solar system from a single nebulous 
mass,—supposing that to have been the condition in which mat- 
ter was first produced.’ But this gentleman finds it convenient 
to forget that God himself—taking his view of the Bible—has de- 
clared in the plainest possible language when this beginning 
was. The creation of heaven was the work of the second day,— 
“God called the firmament heaven,’ and we read in Ex. 20: II, 
‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and 
all that in them is,’ and in Ex. 31:17, ‘In six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth; and on the seventh day he rested, and 
was refreshed.’ Whatever heaven and earth mean in the one 
place, we may reasonably conclude they mean in the other. 
But if God made heaven and earth in six days, then the begin- 
ning, in which he is said to have made them, must be included 
in those six days; for if not, then he did not make the heaven 
and earth in six days, as this passage informs us.” 

““When we have learned that the heaven and earth were made 
in six days, we have a key to the time of the ‘beginning.’ On 
the last of these six days Adam was created. The time from 
the creation of Adam to the deluge is sixteen hundred and fifty- 
six years; and from that time the Bible furnishes us with 
dates by which we learn that the deluge took place about forty- 
two hundred years ago. Then the creation of man took place, 
according to the Bible statement, less than six thousand years 


216 | VEDDER LECTURES. 


ago; and ‘heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,’ 
were created in less than a week before the creation of man ; and 
this was ‘the beginning.’ 

‘‘ But who does not know that this is false? Owen says, very 
justly, that the age of our planet alone, as indicated by geology, 
is a ‘period of time so vast, that the mind, in the endeavor to 
realize it, is strained by an effort like that by which it strives to 
conceive the space dividing the solar system from the distant 
nebulz.’ Dr. Buckland, himself a clergyman of the Church of 
England, says: ‘ Many extensive plains and massive mountains 
form, as it were, the great charnel-house of preceding genera- 
tions, in which the petrified exuviz of extinct races of animals 
and plants are piled into stupendous monuments of the opera- 
tion of life and death, during almost immeasurable periods of 
time.’ Prof. Sedgwick, of Cambridge, England, says: ‘ During 
the evolution of countless succeeding ages, mechanical and chemi- 
cal laws seem to have undergone no change; but tribes of sen- 
tient beings were created, and lived their time upon the earth.’ 
Prof. Hitchcock, of Amherst, says: ‘The globe must have ex- 
isted during a period indefinitely long anterior to the creation of 
man. Weare not aware that any practical and thorough geolo- 
gist doubts this, whatever are his views in respect to revelation.’ 
No geologist pretends to speak of less than millions of years for 
the time during which the various formations that constitute the 
crust of the earth were deposited. 

“ Nearly all would-be harmonizers of Genesis and geology are 
now ‘compelled’ to take the same view (with Miller in his ‘ Tes- 
timony of the Rocks’), and make the word ‘day’ cover a period 
millions of years in extent.” ‘On the face of it, an interpreta- 
tion that makes the word ‘ day? mean an immense period of time, 
+s strained and unnatural. . How could it be said with any pro- 
priety or truth, ‘In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, 
the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: 
wherefore God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it,’ if each 
of the six days were millions of years long, and the seventh 
evidently a natural day of twenty-four hours? Ex. 31:17, 
must be read to signify, ‘In six periods, millions of years long, 
the Lord made heaven and earth; and on the seventh period, of 
twenty-four hours long, he rested and was refreshed!’ The time 
of rest is, out of all proportion, small to the time of labor ; and 
why should the same word, used in the same connection, mean 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 217 


in the first part of the verse millions of years, and in the last 
part only twenty-four hours? Hugh Miller, in order to escape 
this difficulty, represents the seventh day as still continuing. 
‘Over it,’ he says, ‘no evening is represented in the record as 
falling, for its special work (of redemption) is not complete.’ 
But the Bible says expressly, God ‘ vested,’ and God blessed the 
seventh day, because he had ‘ vested,’ not rests ;_ and by this rest 
he ‘ was refreshed ,’ not, he is being refreshed, as it ought to have 
been, if God’s Sabbath still continues. 

‘*Who cannot see that an interpretation of the word ‘day, that 
involves such an absurdity as this must be false ? 

“Before theologians were, like Hugh Miller, ‘compelled to 
elongate the Genesical days,’ they acknowledged that neither the 
Hebrew nor common sense would admit of any such interpreta- 
tion of the word ‘ day’ as they now give it. 

“In the early editions of ‘Comstock’s Geology ’—it has been 
dropped from the later—was the following letter from Moses 
Stuart, who was Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological 
Seminary of Andover. He was a good Hebrew scholar, and 
wrote a grammar of that language. 

“ «The inquiries you make concerning the word yom, in Gen. I, 
I will briefly answer. It does not.signify an indefinite period 
of time, but always some definite one, when employed, as it 
is in Gen. 1, in the singular number. It sometimes means a 
specific day of the week; sometimes /fo-day—that is, this day; 
sometimes a specific day, or season of calamity, joy, particular 
duty, action, suffering, etc. It is only the plural, yamim, which 
is employed for time in an indefinite way, as ‘‘ in many days to 
come,” “days of my life,” etc. But, even here, the plural in 
most cases is a limited one—limited by some adjective, numeral, 
etc.; often it stands fora year... . When the sacred writer in 
Gen. I says, the jirst day, the second day, etc., there can be no 
possible doubt—none, I mean, for a philologist, let a geologist 
think as he may—that a definite day of the week is meant, which 
definite day is designated by the numbers /irst, second, third, etc. 
What puts this beyond all question in philology is, that the 
writer says specifically, the evening and the morning were the 
Jirst day, the second day, etc. Now, is an evening and a morning 
a period of some thousands of years? Is it in any sense, when 
so employed, an indefinite period? The answer is so plain and 
certain that I need not repeat it.... If Moses has given us an 


218 VEDDER LECTURES. 


erroneous account of the creation, so beit. Let it come out ; 
and let us have the whole. But do not let us turn aside his 
language to get rid of difficulties that we may have in our specu- 
lations.’ ” 

“That is honest, that is manly; he meets the subject fairly, 
nor attempts to dodge the responsibilities. Stuart was not, 
however, a geologist, or he would have known that it was not to 
get rid of difficulties that Bible geologists had in their ‘ specula- 
tions’ that they resorted to this forced and unnatural definition 
of days, but to get rid of difficulties that facts, incontrovertible 
facts, presented. 
~ “Tf each day consisted of an evening and a morning, and a 
day was a period millions of years in duration, then there must 
have been a period of darkness about as long as the period of 
light. How could the plants made on the third day survive this 
million years’ night ? Orif evening and morning mean a period 
of rest and a period of action, as some have suggested, then 
there must have been immensely long periods during which 
nothing was being accomplished. How is it that the rocks 
furnish no record of them? And if God rested a million of 
years between each creative act, what need was there of a 
seventh-day rest ? 

“< But Hugh Miller harmonized Genesis and Geology. If you 
thad- said that he had tried, and, failing, put an end to his life, 
‘you would have been much nearer-the truth.” 

“In the beginning,’ then, was but fifty-eight hundred and 
seventy-four years ago; and thus the first verse of the Bible 
demonstrates that the book has had an entirely false estimate 
‘put upon it, and that one of its writers, at least, was entirely 
ignorant of what he professed to teach.”—Pp. 6-16. 


- Such is the incontrovertible argument by which 
an unbeliever in Revealed Truth overwhelms the 
aforesaid theory of Miller for reconciling the 
Mosaic record with theoretical geology ; and such 
is the legitimate deduction drawn from this 
unfortunate assumption, which I repudiate as 
an amazing perversion of logic. But I shall 
‘hereafter show that “the incontrovertible facts,” 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 219 


spoken of by Mr. Denton as the source of difficul- 
ties unmanageable in proving practical geology 
in harmony with the Mosaic record, are not facts 
but fictions fallaciously founded on fact. This 
I propose to do in discussing the matter of the 
vast age which, we are told, all geologists in com- 
mon assign to the earth. 

Those of them who, like Dr. Sedgwick, think 
others guilty of “a sinful indiscretion” in making 
the creative days to be no days at all, but millen- 
nia of years, adopt another theory equally objec- 
tionable with the one already considered. While 
retaining the natural meaning of the word day, 
they say that the first verse of the first chapter of 
Genesis is an independent proposition, having no 
necessary connection with the sequel, but simply 
states the fact of the formation of the heavens and 
the earth. Between the first and second verses, 
therefore, they thrust in millions of years. Their 
theory, however, will not stand, for the following 
reason: 7 

The second verse is bound to the first by the 
copulative vav, which means a hook ; it is used to 
connect words, to hook sentences one to another; 
and, especially in a continuous narrative, never is 
or can be used in the sense of a disjunctive, but 
always has the meaning of avd. Had Moses in- 
tended to have left room for such an opinion as 
asserts and inserts millions of years between these 
verses, he would have left the second verse with- 
out a copulative, or introduced it with a disjunc- 
tive ; but he has done neither. If it was his inten- 
tion to exhibit these two verses with the following 


220 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ones of the narrative, as so many links of one 
chain, he could not have done otherwise than in- 
sert a vav at the beginning of the second and of 
each succeeding one. This is just what he has 
done. Every vav, therefore, in this narrative of 
creative acts must be translated AND. Should 
any one insist that the vav of the second verse 
may be taken in the sense of dch, but, then I insist 
that every other must be taken in the same sense, 
by reason of the close continuity of facts; but 
this would throw the whole into confusion, and 
is on that account inadmissible. This second 
theory, therefore, isan assumption equally glaring 
with the first, and equally incompatible with the 
principles of philology. 

The discoveries of geology are, beyond all ques- 
tion, of an intensely interesting character. To such 
magnificent volumes as those of Bakewell, Buck- 
land, De la Beche, Dana, and others, in my pos- 
session, I am proud to acknowledge my indebted- 
ness. By their lucid instruction, like others of 
my profession, I can become as good a geologist 
perhaps, within the walls of my study, as they 
who, within similar dimensions, have done a much 
larger amount of geological business on as small 
a capital. From these explorers we learn that our 
elobe is surrounded by numerous strata of mineral 
matter, various in quality and thickness, superim- 
posed: in a regular gradation, like the layers of an 
onion, the sum of which is estimated by geometri- 
cal measurement from ten to thirty or fifty miles 
in depth from the surface. Thence to the centre 
of the earth, nearly four thousand miles, it is by 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 221 


most of our learned men supposed to be a vast 
mass of molten rock, which is like a shoreless, 
bottomless ocean of liquid fire. Many of them 
think it is solid from the centre, with vast cavities 
interspersed, some containing this igneous matter 
in seething agitation, others large reservoirs of gas, 
and still others, oceans of mineral mud. The vast 
number of vegetable and animal remains imbed- 
ded in these strata contribute to a great fund of 
thought, out of which theories are formed as to 
the age and make-up of our little planet. By these 
theories, geology has been made to appear in con- 
flict with the Mosaic record ; and, in consequence, 
the instrument of impairing or destroying faith in 
the science of Revealed Truth: But as there can 
be no discrepancy between true facts and Revealed 
Truth, which has been proved long before geology 
was born, a consistent, harmonious system whose 
facts and principles correlate in a form of knowl- 
edge scientifically exact, the cosmogony of Moses, 
interpreted by the laws of language, must contain 
the truth of geology, no matter what theories may 
say. Upon those who deny it, the onus probandi 
heavily rests. They cannot ask that matters of 
opinion shall be taken as matters of scientific in- 
duction, nor that hypotheses be substituted for 
principles, from which alone sure and satisfactory 
knowledge may be drawn. If their deductions be 
shown to be principles explanatory of facts, in the 
only rational way in which they can be explained, 
then geology will assume the dignity of a science 
whose facts and principles are in correlation; 
but if, instead of principles drawn from facts 


222 VEDDER LECTURES. 


by an accurate induction, we find them theories 
based on assumptions, and generalizations drawn 
from weak, insufficient, obscure, or unmanagea- 
ble facts, and not upon the plain facts of the 
strata themselves, then geology has no higher 
claims than geography or topography on the 
score of science. Let us see. 

Geologists are at variance among themselves 
as to several matters upon which there should be 
no disagreement in a “science,” ¢.g.¢ 

1. Whether the world was begun as a body of 
gas or as a body of fire? | 

2. Whether the days of creation spoken of in 
Gen. I, were literal days or cons? 

3. What is the origin of limestone, rock-salt, 
and other minerals? 

4. What were the processes of formation in the 
various kinds of primary rock ? 

5. How were the strata laid, and why the order 
of them rather than some other? 

6. What were the causes of mountain upheavals 
and the dislocations of the strata ? 

7. What time or times elapsed during the for- 
mation of each and of all the strata? 

8. What were the causes and sources of mate- 
rial of the coal measures ? 

g. When did vegetable life commence, and how 
long before animal life began ? etc. 

Whatever diversity of opinion may exist among 
geologists upon other matters, there 1s one upon 
which, we are assured, they all agree, namely, 
that the formation of the strata composing the 
crust of the earth consumed an immense period, 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 223 


even billions of years; that the phenomena of dislo- 
cations, upheavals, and faults, are referable to such 
forces as are now producing changes on the sur- 
face of the earth; that these forces, mechanical 
and chemical, with the action of gravity, fire, and 
water, have ever exhibited the same intensity of 
dynamic agency; and that no geological events 
can be regarded as having taken place in any 
other way than according to the same MEASURE of 
rapidity and power with which they are now 
known to work. This last is regarded as a 
fundamental principle, upon which all their rea- 
soning is founded. 


‘‘ We assume,” says Prof. Dana, ‘‘ that the forces in the world 
are essentially the same through all time: for these forces are 
based on the very nature of matter, and could not have changed.”’ 
“The laws of the existing world are consequently a key to the 
past history.” ‘‘They are the active forces and mechanical 
agencies which were the means of physical progress—spreading 
out and consolidating the strata, raising mountains, ejecting 
lavas, wearing out valleys, bearing the material of the heights to 
the plains and the oceans, enlarging the oceans, destroying life, 
and performing an efficient part in evolving the earth’s structure 
and features.” ‘‘ These agencies are held to have had no more 
power toward determining the directions of progress in evolu- 
tion, than they now have in determining the course of progress 
‘in development.” 


While this is thus acknowledged to be an as- 
sumption, and nothing more, it cannot be held to 
be an established principle, argument from which 
will lead to reliable truth in results. Nothing in 
the strata can be assigned as evidence that they 
were originally laid in a horizontal position and 
subsequently broken up by these forces acting 


224 VEDDER LECTURES. 


with no greater violence and rapidity than they 
now exhibit. The evidence appears all the other 
way, if the Noachian Flood be admitted, and if 
we may argue from the great number of extinct 
volcanoes found in all latitudes, and also by the 
prodigious upheavals of mountain ranges all over 
the earth, and the wild confusion into which its 
strata have been thrown. To attribute these and 
many other results of evident violent action to the 
measure of force now exerted by the uniformly 
acting forces of nature, surely is not reasonable. 
But even if this assumption be admitted to the 
dignity of a principle, it will be found fatal to the 
cosmological theories which are built upon it. 
Many distinguished geologists hold that the first 
form of the earth was a vast body of gas, which 
finally, after ages of chemical activity, was reduced 
to a globe of fire, or of molten matter in fiery bil- 
lows. But this, too, is an assumption having no 
evidence to rely upon in the strata themselves; 
for our knowledge of all sorts of gases teaches us 
that they are evolved out of solid material, and 
not solid material out of them. When subjected 
to a pressure equal to the weight of a column of 
water 1230 feet high, and at 32° Fahr., carbonic 
acid gas is liquefied. Is there any known agency 
by which that form of it can be retained when the 
pressure is taken off? I think not. So of other 
gases. If these chemical laws have always acted 
as they now do, what becomes of this theory? It 
is utterly baseless. In the beginning God made 
the earth, but he did not make gas out of which 
the earth was formed by the laws of nature or by 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 225 


miraculous agency. Nothing exists in the make- | 
up of the earth from which such an inference can 
be scientifically drawn. Gas may lie latent in 
solid matter, out of which it is generated under 
certain conditions by chemical forces, but we know 
of no condition of the gases that allows those 
forces to produce solid matter out of them. This 
theory is therefore contrary to the laws of matter 
no less than to the Mosaic record, and is unscien- 
tific and absurd. 

But there is a large number of geologists who, 
while ignoring the gas theory, hold another quite 
as objectionable. They tell us that the earth was 
formed an igneous mass of molten matter, which 
by the laws of nature assumed the form of a globe 
rotating upon its axis; and in the process of ages 
its surface cooled, forming a crust of granite over 
this molten mass, the form of which proves that 
in its original condition of a fiery, billowy ocean, it 
was anoblate spheroid ; otherwise the crust could 
not have been enlarged at the equator and flat- 
tened at the poles; that this crust was ridged and 
diversified by huge, high granite mountains and 
granite plains; that after an immense lapse of ages, 
mechanical and chemical laws, acting as they now 
do upon matter, disintegrated them by particles, 
so that they were all abraded, worn away, and 
worn down into comminuted sand or coarser 
detritus ; and thus borne down to the plains and 
ravines, were carried by rivers and streams into 
the great cavities of the crust containing the 
oceans and seas, over the bottoms of which these 
mountains of granite, having been pulverized by 


226 VEDDER LECTURES. ~ 


the laws of nature acting as slowly as they do 
now, and with their well-known ordinary force, 
were thus universally spread out; and thus was 
formed the first stratum that overlaid the floor of 
the primeval crust. Then a long period of rest 
must be allowed for this first stratum to be suffi- 
ciently consolidated by the superincumbent oceans 
before another period of commotion, by which 
another set of mountains, of different mineral 
quality, should be thrown up, to be worn down in 
the same way, and to be superimposed as the sec- 
ond stratum. Omitting all the alleged particulars 
which modified each world-production through 
eras of submergence and emergence as were inci- 
dent to them, suffice it to say that stratum upon 
stratum from successive piles of mountains, be- 
longing to successive worlds, were thus super- 
imposed in a horizontal position, until the last 
one formed, when, at some time or other, by 
a tremendous convulsion or successive convul- 
sions of nature, all these strata were torn up 
from the bottom and dashed into the utmost 
confusion, the granite of the first being thrown up 
into our present mountain ranges, carrying with 
it the matter of the other strata curved upwards, 
and otherwise deflected, without breaking, into all 
angles of inclination, and in many places com- 
mingled into masses of rocks, detritus, gravel, 
and various qualities of earth, yet so that we may 
arrive at sure conclusions as to the details of the 
cosmogony, the outline of which has. now been 
given from their own descriptive volumes. 

Now, if all this amazing statement of physical 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 227 


facts, conditions, and agencies be a true represen- 
tation of the past history of our globe, then be- 
yond all doubt millions and billions of years, more 
or less, must have intervened between the time of 
the beginning and the formation of the present 
world out of the débris of former worlds; and 
Moses is not to be believed, because either from 
ignorance or design he withholds every item of 
this interesting detail; and not only so, but gives 
a clearly false statement, connecting the beginning 
and the end within a period of six days, for it is 
indubitable that the earth of the second verse of 
Genesis 1, is the identical earth of the first verse 
of the chapter made in the beginning; and since 
he further declares in the written moral law that 
in six days God made the heavens and the earth, 
there is no escape from the conclusion that he 
represents our earth to be a creation when it was 
_ only a reproduction out of the matter of old 
worlds, which had been in existence, with light, 
atmosphere, and vegetable growths necessary for 
the lives of the huge animals now extinct, whose 
fossil remains are found in the older strata. This 
theory of the formation of the earth out of the 
ruins of old worlds, that had been illumined and 
in all respects fitted to sustain vegetable and ani- 
mal life, is admitted by Christian geologists who 
claim to have reconciled the Mosaic record with - 
it. Thus Dr. Buckland, in his Bridgewater Trea- 
tise, Says: 

‘‘ Assuming that the whole materials of the globe may have 


been once in a fluid or even a nebular state, from the presence 
of intense heat, the passage of the first consolidated portions of 


228 VEDDER LECTURES. 


this fluid or nebulous mass to a solid state may have been pro- 
duced by the radiation of heat from its surface into space; the 
gradual abstraction of such heat would allow the particles of 
matter to approximate and crystallize, and the first result of this 
crystallization might have been the formation of a shell or crust, 
composed of oxidated metals and metalloids, constituting various 
rocks of the granite series, around an incandescent nucleus of 
melted matter heavier than granite. 

‘““The detritus of the first dry lands being drifted into the sea 
and there spread out into extensive beds of mud and sand and 
gravel, would forever have remained beneath the surface of the 
water, had not other forces been subsequently employed to raise 
them into dry land (again). 

‘* Whenever solid matter arose above the water, it became ex- 
posed to destruction by atmospheric agents : by rains, torrents, 
and inundations, at that time, probably, acting with intense vio- 
lence, and washing down and spreading forth in the form of mud 
and sand and gravel, upon the bottom of the then existing seas, 
the materials of primary stratified rocks, which by subsequent 
exposure to various degrees of subterranean heat became con- 
verted into beds of gneiss, and mica slate, and hornblende slate, 
and clay slate. In the detritus thus swept from the early lands 
into the most ancient seas, we view the commencement of that 
enormous series of derivative strata which by long-continued 
repetition of similar processes have been accumulated to a thick- 
ness of many miles,” 


All this, we are told, may have been, but then it 
may not have been, and so nothing is proved. It is 
easy to slide out of assumption into assertion of 
fact, but there is a wide difference between them. 

The same supposable facts are “assumed” by 
Macculloch, who says: 


‘“‘The first condition of the earth which has been inferred is 
that of a gaseous sphere ; while it is my business to state that 
the only evidence for this is derived from the analogy of comets, 
itself rather more inferential than proved, as far as the study of 
these bodies has hitherto proceeded. But it must also be said 
as corroborative of such an inference, that the laws of the radia- 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 229 


tion of heat, and those of chemical combination, do permit the 
_ needful inference that such a sphere might or must finally become 
a fluid ; or at least a fluid globe.” “The first apparently solid 
globe was, therefore, a globe of granite, or of those rocks which 
bear the nearest crystalline analogies to it.”—Vol. ii., pp. 416, 417. 

“‘T have drawn the conclusion that there was one terraqueous 
globe, one earth divided into sea and land, even prior to that last 
named, containing mountains to furnish and an ocean to receive 
those materials which formed ¢he second set of mountains, whose 
fragments are zow embedded in our primary strata, or in those of 
a third order.”—Vol. i., p. 464. 


Prof. Hitchcock, adopting these views, says: 


“The whole period occupied in the deposition of the fossi- 
liferous rocks must have been immensely long. There must 
have been time for water to have made depositions more than six 
miles in thickness, by materials worn from previous rocks, and 
more or less comminuted ; time enough, also, to allow of hun- 
dreds of changes in the materials deposited, such changes as now 
require a long period for the production of one of them; time 
enough to allow of the growth and dissolution of animals and 
plants, often of microscopic littleness, sufficient to constitute 
almost entire mountains of their remains; time enough to pro- 
duce, by an extremely slow change of climate, the destruction 
of several entire groups of organic beings ; for, although sudden 
catastrophes may have sometimes been the immediate cause of 
their extinction, there is reason to believe those catastrophes 
did not usually happen till such a change had taken place in the 
physical condition of the globe as to render it no longer a com- 
fortable habitation for beings of their organization. We must 
judge of the time requisite for these deposits by similar opera- 
tions zow in progress, and those are in general extremely slow.” 


Thus it will be seen that he fully endorses the 
speculations that began with transatlantic geolo- 
gists, but has exceeded them in one particular ; 
and that is in reference to Zght, which he thinks 
was not created when God said, “ Let there be 
light ;” but was only reproduced or called out of 


230 VEDDER LECTURES. 


a latent state in previous matter of old worlds 
which had absorbed it. He further says: 


‘‘ From the facts which modern science has developed as to 
the existence of light and heat in all bodies, we can hardly 
imagine that these were not created in the beginning along with 
matter. But these facts show us that they might have existed 
without being visible, or that having been visible during ages, 
they might have been absorbed into matter, and that it required 
the power of Almighty God to develop them to such an extent 
as was necessary to the new state of the earth ; that is to say, it 
was rather a recreation than an original production of light that 
is described in the third verse” (of Gen. i.). 


What kind of light was zvzsib/e light, or how, 
after shining for a while, could light be “ absorbed 
into matter’? ) | 

Who does not see that this is a point-blank con- 
tradiction to the Mosaic record? If, when God 
said, “ Let there be light, and there was light,” the 
meaning be simply a reproduction of what had 
been in existence and operation ages before, then 
every other fact of the Mosaic record must be 
held to have been a reproduction and not a new 
creation. What more of concession do infidels 
need to demolish the foundation of the Mosaic 
record, with every thing built upon it? What a 
sweeping process they may now boast of! What 
an admirable expedient is this to reconcile the 
Mosaic record with theoretical geology! What 
an enlightened opinion, suggesting how 7 might 
be that sunlight, having existed for ages for the 
eyes of the Trilobite and of various other animals, 
and for vegetable growths, was put out, like a 
candle, when the old world went to its sleep of 
death ; or was adsorbed into the darkness of mat- 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 231 


ter, no matter how! Where is the intelligent in- 
fidel that would not clap hands over such a bril- 
liant harmony of statements, as apparently an- 
tagonistic as truth and falsehood ? 

To bring Moses into sweet accord with theo- 
retical geology, the assumption of the latter must 
forsooth demand that, in spite of philology, billions 
of years shall be thrust between the first and 
second verses of the first chapter of Genesis ; and 
then an affecting appeal is made to all the ad- 
herents of Moses, by Dr. Hitchcock, who, after 
enumerating his points, says (Religion of Geology 
p. 60) : 3 

‘‘Let this imperfect summary of evidence in favor of the 
earth’s high antiquity be candidly weighed, and can any one 
think it strange that every man who has carefully and exten- 
sively examined the rocks in their native beds is entirely con- 
vinced of its validity? Men of all professions, and of divers 
opinions concerning the Bible, have been geologists; but on 
this point they are unanimous, however they may differ as to 
other points in the science. Must we not, then, regard this fact 
as one of the settled principles of the science? If so, who will 
hesitate to say that it ought to settle the interpretation of the 
first of Genesis in favor of the meaning which allows an inter- 


vening period between the creation of matter and the creation 
of light? This is the grand point to be established.” 


But that it can never be established by such in- 
coherent reasoning as this is as clear as noon-day, 
for 

1. He lays down a hypothesis in reference to 
the existence of the world in some sort of a state 
previous to the Mosaic account, which is incon- 
sistent with natural law, and for which there is 
not even the ghost of a proof. 


232 VEDDER LECTURES. 


2. He next theorizes about the formation of the 
strata of the present world and of the débris of 
old broken-down worlds, and inal pronounces 
it a fact. 

3. This fact becomes foreaith a principle of the 
science, and then 

4. This principle becomes an established law of 
exegesis, and then 

5. This law does not explain the text at all, but 
settles the matter as to how millions of years may 
be thrust between the first two verses of it! 

No wonder that Prof. Huxley stands by, com- 
placently stroking his chin, while he utters his 
sarcasm, ‘“‘I have carefully abstained from speak- 
ing of this as a Mosaic doctrine, because we are 
now assured upon the authority of the highest 
critics that there is no evidence whatever that 
Moses ever wrote this chapter, or knew any thing 
about it.” Itis just by such assumptions of sci- 
entific profundity that many ministers of the 
Word of God and Christian laymen have been 
frightened into silence upon this subject, lest they 
might be pitied as unscientific, weak, bigoted, and 
utterly behind the age. 

De Luc says, in his “ Letters,” p. 46: 

‘‘The circulation of systems of natural history contrary to 
the Mosaic revelation has been greatly extended by represent- 
ing them as wholly unconnected with Christianity, the certainty 
of which, it is said, is independent of that of the Jewish reli- 
gion, or, at least, of the first chapters of Genesis—an assertion 
which even a number of Christian ministers have been made to 
believe. It is thus that a great number of individuals have 


allowed themselves to be carried away by pretended natural sci- 
ence, without being aware of its tendency; that it has become 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 233 


a kind of fasiion; that its general results, exhibited as demon- 
strated propositions, have been circulated through all classes of 
society ; and that, at length, the greater part of those who pre- 
tend to any information are fearful of incurring the charge of 
ignorance if they do not side with those who consider the first 
of our sacred books as a fiction.” 


All rational men will admit that nothing is so 
unphilosophical as the denial of facts because we 
cannot explain how it is that they are constituted 
facts; but it is not unphilosophical to deny theo- 
ries advanced to explain them, when shown to 
come short in the very particular upon which 
their competency depends. When facts are col- 
lected for scientific observation, their probable 
causes are first sought for; and then hypotheses 
are laid for appropriate explanation. To verify such 
hypotheses, as containing explanatory principles 
which must ultimately take their places like the 
strong timbers of scientific framework, men must 
succeed in showing that they cover all the facts 
collected and collated, and have become bonds 
of union by which facts are harmoniously classi- 
fied and relatively understood. Many Christian 
men of acknowledged ability have issued works 
like those I have named, taking for granted that 
the theoretical geology which assigns billions 
of years to the formation and perfection of the 
earth, is a truthful representation of the physical 
facts belonging to its history; but infallibility is 
not claimed for the loftiest human genius that 
ever burst into sky-rocket brilliancy ; and for that 
reason, every volume that ever issued from the 
hands of men may be questioned in some particu- 
lars of its process. Now, if the theory under 


234 VEDDER LECTURES. 


consideration can be proved to have reduced its 
hypotheses to explanatory principles, taking in 
all the facts collected, then we have nothing to do 
but to accept it; though in the acceptance we 
must let Moses go as an uninspired historian, 
whose alleged physical facts cannot be accredit- 
ed ; since it is demonstrably impossible to recon- 
cile his cosmogony with the prevailing theory 
without destroying the science of philology, 
and the very basis upon which a verbal rey- 
elation from God to man is at all possible. I 
think that can be made to appear as clear as 
light. : 

But if the works in question, like that of the 
author of “The Pre-Adamite Earth,” written by 
talented and good men for the very best of pur- 
poses, be found not only to come short of their 
aim, but to be injurious in their influence, if not 
anti-Christian in their tendency, there is no virtue 
shown in the neglect to counteract them, so far as 
it may be done by exhibiting the facts of their fail- 
ure and of their injury done. Infidelity has in- 
creased notoriously and prodigiously just within 
the period during which these books have been 
written advocating the theory in question; and this 
is the more remarkable, because within no other 
has gospel effort been so wisely and so efficiently 
concentrated. There isasure cause for this anom- 
aly, and to me it seems to be obviously lurking in 
the circulation of such works as subordinate the 
foundation facts of the Bible to what is claimed 
to be the facts of geology ocularly demonstrated, 
and clearly incompatible with the former as they 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 235 


stand upon the face of the inspired record; and 
this opinion, allowed to pervade the church and 
the world unchallenged, has had a controlling in- 
fluence with the leaders of public sentiment; and 
infidelity has been encouraged in its efforts, and 
has largely succeeded. This will account for the 
fact, by the evidence of the literature floating 
over the religious portions of the world touching 
this matter, within the last fifty years or more. 

That my position with regard to this theory, as 
utterly insufficient to sustain what is laid upon it, 
is right, I may be allowed to show from geolo- 
gists themselves. Prof. Huxley says in his second 
lecture on “ Evolution,” in New York: 


‘““We have taken into consideration that important fact so 
well insisted upon by Lyell and Darwin—the imperfection of 
the geological record. It can be demonstrated as a matter of | 
fact that the geological record must be incomplete, that it can 
only preserve remains found in certain favorable localities and 
under particular conditions; that it must be destroyed by pro- 
cesses of metamorphosis—by which I mean that beds of rock 
of any thickness, crammed full of organic remains,’may yet, 
either by the percolation of water through them, or the influ- 
ence of subterranean heat (if they descend far enough toward the 
centre of the earth), lose all trace of these remains and present 
the appearance of beds of rock formed under conditions in 
which there was no trace of living forms. Such metamorphic 
rocks occur in formations of all ages, and we know with perfect 
certainty when they do appear that they contained organic 
remains, and that these remains have been absolutely oblite- 
rated.” 


Speaking of rocks traversed by cleavage, in 
which there have been movements and rearrange- 
ments, perhaps when in a semifluid state, De la 
Beche says: 


236 VEDDER LECTURES. 


“There have often been elongations in those directions, so 
that any organic remains contained in the beds become dis- 
torted, and seem as if pulled out.”—Geo, Ods., p. 621. 


However careful competent observers may be, 
it is quite evident, from these and other facts al- 
ready spoken of, that they are liable to fall into 
great mistakes in their processes of deduction, 
and so advance claims that will not bear the test 
of close investigation. 

I propose more fully to show, in my next lec- 
ture, that the claims of theoretical geology are 
unfounded ; and that Moses does not need these 
efforts of our Christian geologists to preserve his 
character as an inspired historian from ruin. 


ei CUR cy, 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY AND THE 
MOSAIC COSMOGONY. 


Practical Geology not in conflict with the Science of Revealed Truth— 
Quotation from an infidel author—The prevailing Theoretical Geology 
irreconcilable with the Mosaic account in seven particulars—Irrecon- 
cilable with the Scriptures in four particulars—Contrary to the laws of 
nature—Theoretical absurdities in World-formations—Inferences no 
proof—Argument from fossil remains answered— Universality of Deluge 
denied—Arguments against it answered—Quotation from an infidel au- 
thor—Only three theories possible—The true one indicated—Geology 
nota science having principles peculiar to itself—The Bible and Chris- 
tianity ask no favor, but demand a fair decision upon evidence—The 
only hope. 


IF our Christian geologists in their publications 
had aimed to adjust geological theory to the long 
and well established Science of Revealed Truth, 
as they might have done with ample success, in- 
stead of attempting to show how the Bible may 
be brought. into harmony with geological theory, 
they would have worthily accomplished a good 
work ; but strangely overlooking this, and assum- 
ing common ground with materialistic and pan- 


238 VEDDER LECTURES. 


theistic geologists in their speculative opinions 
about the unthinkably great age of the earth, they 
have so expounded the scriptural history of crea- 
tion, as to excite the derision of infidelity, thus 
confirmed in its opposition to the Bible, by a 
-method which only goes to show that harmony is 
impossible; and to shake the faith of the bewil- 
dered believer who has relied upon his Bible with 
childlike confidence. Unfortunately, they con- 
cede that Genesis 1, literally interpreted, does not 
say what its consecutive verses evidently seem to 
say, but that the facts referred to, and the times 
of the facts, are entirely different from the repre- 
sentation of plain history as related by Moses 
without any figure of speech whatever. Conse- 
quently, there is no revelation. The use which 
infidelity legitimately makes of this, may be well 
imagined; but not trusting to imagination, I will 
give an example taken from Mr. Denton’s book, 
already referred to. 


‘If the account of creation given in Genesis is false, then the 
commandments said to have been given to Moses on Mount 
Sinai, which endorse that account, never came from God ; and 
the Pentateuch is a merely human production, of no more au- 
thority than the account of creation itself. But with the Penta- 
teuch, away go all the Old Testament books, for they endorse 
it, and argue from it. It is impossible that the spirit of truth 
could have inspired men to build upon and endorse the terrible 
falsehoods of the Pentateuch. But, when the Old Testament is 
gone, how much of the New remains? Jesus appeals to the Old 
Testament, urges his claims on the strength of its statements, 
and the evangelists and apostles everywhere recognize its au- 
thority, as fully as our orthodox ministers do to-day. All that 
we can do, then, in the light of absolute fact, is to accept the 
Bible only as the statements of men, in many cases lamentably 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 239 


ignorant of what they pretend to teach, and of no more authority 
than the writings of Mohammed or Joseph Smith.” 

Such is the argument fairly drawn from certain 
works, purporting to reconcile the Bible with 
geology. The very way by which the authors 
have conducted their discussions, leaves an abid- 
ing conviction that, in their judgment, Revealed 
Truth, literally taken in the statements of its own 
foundation facts, is irreconcilable with geological 
truth demonstrated by its own indubitable facts, 
which, according to them, no well-informed man 
can gainsay ; therefore, the Bible needs to be exe- 
getically adjusted to the claims of their theoretical 
geology to preserve its character unimpaired. 
Thus a writer says: “We are come to where 
four cross-roads meet: for, first, we must deny 
the geological facts and inferences; or, secondly, 
we must give up the popular interpretation of 
the first chapter of Genesis, and reconcile the 
facts to the sacred text by a new one; or, thirdly, 
we must deny that the Bible touches at all upon 
the question; or, fourthly, we must give up the in- 
spiration of the Bible as to its physical statements.” 
We hope to show that this is a mistake. 

The theory, assigning to the age of the earth 
millions or billions of years, was in the outset a 
wild assumption, wholly uncalled for and unneces- 
sary to account for geological phenomena: but 
Christian geologists have contributed to confirm 
it as unquestionably true, in the minds of many 
depending upon their perspicacit y, and who accept 
it because these learned men, while revering the 
Bible, insist that either the days of Genesis 1, are 


240 VEDDER LECTURES. 


not days at all, but goxs, each of which may have 
embraced millions of years, or that the first verse 
of Genesis must be held to stand so completely 
apart by itself, an independent absolute proposi- 
tion, as to allow these billions of years to have 
elapsed before the facts announced in the following 
verses could have taken place; hence, while many 
Christians feel they must accept it, their confi- 
dence in all literal biblical fact is somewhat, more 


or less, shaken. 
Speaking of himself and colaborers, Professor 


Hitchcock says: 


‘‘ We occupy stations where it becomes our frequent duty to 
explain the principles of geology to those who are in a course of 
public education. After we have given them fully and fairly the 
facts of the science. they will inevitably draw the inference, if we 
do not, that vast periods of time must have been occupied by all 
the changes that appear to have taken place among the rocks. 
We must, therefore, meet the question fairly, whether such an 
inference conflicts with the Mosaic history. And we know, too, 
that some able geologists would be quite willing to have such a 
discrepancy made out. Now should we take the ground that 
the rocks were not formed by secondary causes, but instantane- 
ously by the power of God, with all their organic contents, or 
that they were deposited by * partial floods and earthquakes, and 
successive ones,’ between the creation of man and the Noachian 
deluge, or by that deluge, we are quite certain that we could not 
defend ourselves against these infidel geologists, in the view of 
those who are acquainted with the science. If, on the other hand, 
we maintain that the words of Moses do not admit of any other 
interpretation than the common one, in respect to the age of the 
_ world, this is just what gratifies the infidel ; for he feels sure 
that we thus virtually acknowledge discrepancy between the two 
records, But if we contend that Moses’ words admit of a con- 
struction consistent with geological principles, then many of our 
Christian brethren regard us as doing injury to the sacred cause 
of religion. In such a dilemma, what can we do?”—J7d, Kep., 


1836, p. 486. 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 241 


But, by contending for the plain meaning of 
Genesis I, as it stands out upon the face of the 
_ record, there is no necessity for getting into such a 
dilemma. Inthe matter of instruction, geologists 
not only give ‘“‘the facts of the science,” but the 
theory as well, which is founded upon the assump- 
tion of Mr. Lyell, that the same causes which are 
now operating on our globe have always operated 
in the same manner and measure as they do now. 
This is a pure assumption, destitute of all proof 
from the strata themselves, contrary to the evi- 
dence of thousands of extinct volcanoes, and ad- 
vanced only for the purpose of sustaining the 
theory of the vast age of the earth. Whoever 
teaches this, as a well-ascertained fact, teaches a 
great error, and may make up his mind that he 
cannot induce any respectable student to accept 
itas compatible with the inspired historical record 
of the Bible, whose words clearly mean the exact 
ideas necessarily created by their native significa- 
tion in a plain narrative of facts. Mr. Lyell was 
one of those able infidel geologists who “are 
quite willing to have such a discrepancy made 
out,’”’ and, no doubt, they who adopt his assump- 
tion as a “principle,”’ will find it impossible to go 
against his conclusions. Christian geologists, by 
avowing that the words of Moses will not bear 
any other than the literal interpretation, so far 
from gratifying infidel geologists, would confound 
them simply by requiring proof instead of assump- 
tion, that the book of nature contradicts the 
written book of God. But by contending that 
Moses’ words admit of a construction consistent 


242 VEDDER LECTURES. 


with the doctrine of the vast age of the earth, 
Christian geologists become an easy prey to the 
infidel on the score of argument, because they 
sacrifice the essential principles of philology to a 
supposititious theory; and thus contribute to the 
strength of the adversary; and to the damage of 
their own avowedly superior science—that of 
Revealed Truth. 

Now let us see what are the details of the argu- 
ment claimed to be decisive in favor of the vast 
age of the earth. Dr. Hitchcock gives it in all its 
fulness. He says that it is important to ascertain 
whether this demand for such indefinite periods 
of time be really called for by the established 
facts of geological science, and proceeds to give 
his decision in the affirmative for the following 
reasons (B72). Rep., 1835, pp. 262-264) : 


‘“y. More than two-thirds of existing continents are covered 
with these fossiliferous rocks ; which contain numerous remains 
of marine animals, so preserved as to prove incontestably that 
they died on the spot where they are now found, and became 
gradually enveloped in the sand or other stony matter which ac- 
cumulated around them, their most delicate spines and processes 
being preserved, In fine, these rocks present every appearance 
of having been formed just as sand, clay, gravel, and limestone 
are now accumulating in the bottom of the ocean, by a very slow 
process. Except in extraordinary cases, indeed, it requires a 
century to produce accumulations of this kind, even a few inches 
thick.” 


But this is no reason for the belief spoken of, 
because it is only an opinion, a statement of facts 
which may be true, or may not be true; but 
whether true or not, cannot affect the question 
about the age of the earth, since these remains 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 243 


might have been the result of a swift process; in 
short, an “extraordinary case” of the extinction 
of animal life by a liberation of noxious gases with 
an outpouring of “stony matter’ from the bowels 
of the earth. Nothing is proved one way or 
another about the vast age of the earth. 


“2. Geologists think they have ascertained that the fossilifer- 
ous strata in Europe are not less than eight or ten miles in thick- 
ness. How immense the period requisite for the production of 
such vast masses !” 


But, surely, what geologists ¢izz% about their 
ascertaining a fact, is a very different thing from 
proof of a fact ascertained. But supposing that 
they are right in their conclusion as to this point, 
how does that settle the question they raise about 
the vast age of the earth? Bakewell says that 
eight miles of its crust in thickness bears about 
the same relation to its body that the coat of var- 
nish does to the artificial globe covered by it; 
and if it be ten times as thick, how easily might a 
corresponding stratum have been evolved out 
of the body of the earth within a period of a hun- 
dred years or less, by the agency of mud volca- 
noes, submarine, and all over the land. So long 
as this may be shown an opinion quite as rational 
as the one indicated, his second reason for the 
vast age of the earth is as irrelevant as the first. 

‘*3, This mass is divided into hundreds of distinct strata, or 
groups of strata; each group containing peculiar organic remains, 
and arranged in as much order, one above another, as the draw- 
ers of a well-regulated cabinet. Such changes show that there 
must have been more or less of change of circumstances in the 


waters from which the successive strata and groups were depos- 
ited. And such changes must have demanded periods of time 


244 VEDDER LECTURES. 


of long duration, for they appear to have been for the most part 
extremely slow. We hence derive confirmatory evidence of the 
views that have been presented concerning the vast periods that 
have been employed inthe production of the fossiliferous strata.” 


All this proceeds upon the assumption that itis a 
well-established fact, that the same causes that are 
now operating on the earth have always operated 
in the same manner and measure as they do now; 
than which nothing is more unlikely, because the 
evidence is all the other way, as above indicated. 
Besides, it is here taken for granted that each 
stratum was derived from the comminution of 
mountains worn away by the action of atmospheric 
forces, and the débris slowly borne down by rivers 
and freshets, and spread out over the bottoms of 
the oceans and seas, thus requiring new sets of 
mountains and rocks, consecutively thrown up, 
to be consecutively worn down in the same way, 
and thus superimposed one upon the other like 
the layers of an onion; but thisis another assump- 
tion, an impossibility by the laws of nature, and 
an impossibility upon the supposition of the truth 
of the first assumption. Hence this reason is 
utterly insufficient. 


‘4. Another circumstance still further confirms these views. 
In very many instances, each successive group of the strata, 
above referred to, contains rounded pebbles derived from some 
of the preceding groups. Those strata, then, from which such 
pebbles were derived, must not only have been deposited, but con- 
solidated and eroded by water, so as to produce these pebbles, 


before the rocks now containing them could have been formed. » 


It is impossible that such changes, numerous as they must have 
been, could have taken place in short periods of time. There 
must certainly have been long intervals between the formation 
of the successive groups.” 


ae 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 245 


But it must here be taken into consideration 
that the strata have all been broken up, and thrust 
through, and upon one another by some convul- 
sion subsequent to the times of their superposi- 
tion. No argument then, such as this, for the vast 
age of the earth, can be derived from the different 
ages allotted to different groups of pebbles. It 
is impossible to disprove the following assertion, 
that a thousand years of commotion in the ancient 
oceans was time amply sufficient for the formation 
of all manner of pebbles in the crust of the earth, 
provided their rotund formation be due to oceanic 
action. But this is a question. Bakewell says: 
“ Satisfactory solutions to all these inquiries (about 
pebbles) will probably long remain desiderata in 
geology, though, in some instances, we can arrive 
at a high degree of probability, by referring to 
Causes in present operation.” The present theory 
about pebbles involves greater difficulties than it 
explains, and therefore no inference can be drawn 
from it for any thing, much less for the great age 
of the earth. 


“‘5. The history of the repeated elevations which the strata 
have undergone conducts us to the same conclusion. Different 
unstratified rocks have been intruded among the stratified ones 
of various epochs, and the strata have been elevated at each 
epoch. . . . Here, then, we have the same evidence of the slow 
formation of the stratified rocks as is taught us by their lithologi- 
cal characters and their organic remains.” 


This declaration is founded upon the assumption 
aforesaid as to the sources of the strata, which not 
only involves an absurdity, but exhibits one in the 
pictures of the strata which geologists draw for 


246 VEDDER LECTURES 


the elucidation of their works. As an evidence 
of the vast age of the earth, they Ze// us how one 
set of mountains and high lands were worn away 
and carried to and spread over the bottoms of 
oceans, and hardened into stone, upon which, 
after many ages, another set of mountains were 
disposed of in the same way ; and thus the several 
strata were formed which compose the entire 
crust of the earth ; but in their pictures they sow 
us how a mountain of granite, for example, has 
been forced up through all these strata, which, in- 
stead of breaking them to atoms, carries them 
upward upon its sides in curved lines, as though 
they had been as yielding and adhesive as strata 
of soft mud. Thus we have the strata, represented 
in many engravings, bent upwards, in curvatures 
of parallel lines, or angular, or eccentric, without 
any breakage. From this source, therefore, there 
can be derived no evidence for the vast age of the 
world. In further confirmation of this, I may 
state that in the coal formation large stems of 
trees, from thirty to eighty feet high, have been 
found standing nearly at right angles to the soil 
out of which they grew. Now, to suppose that 
these would last through long ages of accumula- 
tion, until the strata should slowly reach the top 
of them, is to accept an evident absurdity. 

‘6, Finally, there appear to have been several almost entire 
changes of organic life upon the globe since the deposition of the 
fossiliferous rocks began, and comparative anatomy teaches us 
that so different from one another were the successive groups 
which we find in the different strata, that they could not have 


been contemporaries. . . . But they lived long enough for rocks, 
thousands of thousands of feet in thickness, to be deposited, 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 247 


which now contain their remains. Who can doubt that vast 
periods of time were requisite for such changes of organic life ? 
and who can believe that they have taken place since the creation 
of man? We have dwelt thus Jong upon this point because of its 
importance. For if there is not the most conclusive evidence in 
geology of the existence of the globe longer than the common 
interpretation of the Mosaic history admits, we need not surely 
spend time in reconciling the two records.” 


But appearances are deceptive, especially in 
view of the many accidents, such as the percola- 
tion of water, distortion, and obliteration, which 
befall some of these remains. The argument 
from comparative anatomy is here of little 
value, but supposing all these remains to be so 
complete that there is no danger of mistake, how 
are these remains to prove the great antiquity 
of the globe? If these rocks were originated, as 
they must have been, by sudden eruptions of 
mineral mud, with noxious gases, from the bottom 
- of the ocean, in periodical successions, who does 
not see that vast numbers of fish and other marine 
animals, with vegetable growths, would be speed- 
ily and immovyably fixed in the elementary forma- 
tions of these strata? The fact is, if theoretical 
geology be true, a greater multitude of these 
remains ought to be found, both of sea and 
land, embedded within these rocks. There is, 
therefore, no proof of the vast age of the earth 
derivable from the remains entombed in the strata. 
The pretence is founded on the false theory as to 
the sources whence the strata were derived. The 
assumption that the surface of the whole globe, in 
the first instance, was solid rock, is absurd, as I 


248 VEDDER LECTURES. 


shall show ; there is no proof that any more of it 
was surface rock than that proportion now found. 

Such is the evidence offered us that the world 
is older by immeasurable ages than the Mosaic 
cosmogony implies, but there is not an item of it 
that will sustain that proposition; on the other 
hand, it is weak and vapid, because not derived 
from the facts of geology, but from opinions 
advanced to account for the facts. 

I now propose to show, that this theory is alto- 
gether contrary to the details of the Mosaic cos- 
mogony ; contrary to every other passage of the 
Bible treating of this matter; contrary to the 
laws of nature, and inconsistent with geological 
fact. If these points be made clear, another 
thing will also be shown, namely, the amazing 
fact that theologians, who admit all the facts 
correlating with the principles of biblical science 
as accurately given in literal historical descrip- 
tion by the pen of inspiration, still hold that they 
must be modified, in spite of the laws of phi- 
lology, by a theory founded on assumption ; and, 
as I ‘shall show, in essential conflict with them, 
when another theory lay obviously open for adop- 
tion not so embarrassed. To this I shall briefly 
allude in the sequel. 

I. The theory now sought to be made the stand- 
ard of truth, to which Moses’ account must be re- 
conciled some way or other, is contrary to the 
inspired details of the creation. 

(1.) The Bible says: “Inthe beginning God cre- 
ated the heaven and the earth. And the earth was 
without form, and void; and darkness was upon 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 249 


the face of the deep.” Here the term earth, re- 
peated in close proximity, must denote the same 
identical thing; but this theory denies it, saying 
that the first-named earth means one separated by 
billions of years from the second-named earth, 
which may or may not be the one we inhabit. 
That the sun shone brightly upon the first-named 
earth, but an accumulation of clouds so thickly 
enveloped the second-named earth that the then 
long-before existing sunlight could not pass 
through; hence the “ darkness” which enveloped 
this earth, which was not a new creation, but a 
new formation out of the old material. There can 
be no reconciliation here. . 

(2.) The Bible says, that on the jirst day God 
spoke /ight into being; but this theory denies 
it, saying that sun-light was shining ages before, 
by the requirement of vegetable and animal life, 
whose existence in long continuance is proved 
by the fossil remains found in the strata of broken- 
down worlds. There can be no reconciliation 
here. 

(3.) The Bible says, that on the second day God 
made the expanse of the atmosphere, which he 
called heaven; but this theory denies it, maintain- 
ing that this heaven existed ages before, for the 
same reason that required sunlight, and for the 
support of the thick clouds of darkness that en- 
veloped a reproduced -earth, through which the 
light of the sun could not penetrate. There can 
be no reconciliation here. | 

(4.) The Bible says, that on the third day God 
created vegetable life; but this theory denies it, 


250 VEDDER LECTURES. 


affirming that the strata of the earth contain de- 
monstrations to the contrary in the fossil remains 
of such enormous growths as required the forcing 
of sun-light and a heated atmosphere, without 
which they could not have lived. There can be 
no reconciliation here. 

(5.) The Bible says, that on the fourth day God 
set the sun in the heavens for a great luminary to 
adjust day and night, seasons and years; but this 
theory denies it, asserting that the sun had per- 
formed these offices for ages to previous earths, 
and that on the fourth day, he only cleared away 
a fog. There can be no reconciliation here. 

(6.) The Bible says, that on the f/th day God 
created animal life peculiar to the waters; but 
this theory denies it, because the fossil remains of 
extinct species of fish are found in the strata of 
older worlds. 

(7.) The Bible says, that on the szxrth day, God 
created animal life peculiar to the land; but this 
theory denies it, for the same reason; and asserts 
that life was at this time only a reproduction of 
what had existed ages before. There can be no 
reconciliation here. 

Thus, there is a continuous contradiction which 
lies out of the sphere of all possible harmony. If 
this geological theory be true, the Bible is false ; 
if the Bible be true, this theory is false; and they 
can no more be reconciled than darkness and light 
can coexist in the same room. 

II. This theory is contrary to every other pas- 
sage of the Bible treating of the matter. 

1; ‘The Bible‘says, Ex: 20%: 11,“ In six days the 


A 
‘ i 
ee 


~ THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 251 


Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 
that in them is;” but this theory says he made 
neither heaven, nor earth, nor sea; neither in, nor 
at the time specified ; for they had existed ages be- 
fore; nor did he make all things in them; fora 
vast mass of vegetable and animal remains are 
found in the strata of this world, whose living 
forms belonged to a previous world. There can 
be no reconciliation here. 

2. The Bible says, Mark 10: 6, “ From the begin- 
ning of the creation, God made man male and fe- 
male ;” but this theory denies it, saying that crea- 
tion began billions of years before man had an 
existence. There can be no reconciliation here. 

3. The Bible says, Heb. 11 : 3, “ Thou, Lord, in 
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the 
earth;” but this theory denies that our earth, 
which is the earth spoken of, was founded in the 
beginning ; but a different one in which huge ani- 
mals and reptilesroamed. There can be no recon- 
ciliation here. 

4. The Bible says, Heb. 11 : 3, ‘‘ Through faith 
we understand that the worlds were framed by 
the word of God, so that things which are seen 
were not made of things which do appear;” z2., 
_ the visible world was not made of pre-existent 
matter; but this theory says in opposition: 
“ Through science we understand that the worlds 
were framed by the word of God, so that things 
which are seen were made out of things that do 
appear ;” that is, out of pre-existent matter. This 
is a flat contradiction; and the contradiction is so 
complete throughout, that it is as impossible to 


ake VEDDER LECTURES. 


make the Bible and this theory speak the same 
language, as it is to bring the voice of a mule in 
accord with the tones of a harp. 

III. This theory is contrary to the laws of na- 
ture, which it assumes to have operated as they 
now do from “the beginning.” According to it, 
our planet, in the beginning, was a molten globe 
of liquid rock from centre to circumference, hold- 
ing its globular form by gravitation, and, because 
rotating upon its own axis, was enlarged at the 
equator and flattened at the poles. In process of 
time, its surface, by radiation, cooled down so as 
to form a thin granite crust evenly over the liquid 
mass, which, by cooling, was contracted; and by 
contracting was squeezed up into lofty mountains, 
high hills, and formed deep chasms and extended 
plains, all of the same quality of unstratified or 
crystallized rock. This radiation, extending far out 
into surrounding space, produced a hot atmos- 
phere into which masses of vapor were received 
and ultimately returned in rain. This accounts 
for the first water, alternating between the states 
of vapor and rain until, at length, the surface be- 
came sufficiently cold to retain it in its cavities. 
Hence, the first oceans, seas, and rivers. Thus 
an author informs us: 


“The first rugosities, the first ridges were formed on the sur- 
face of the globe, which possibly afforded the first hold for the 
action of water, the precipitation of which took place, without 
doubt, long before the temperature of the terrestrial crust had 
descended to 212° of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, in consequence 
of the pressure exerted by the vapor then diffused in the air. 
From that moment waves produced débris and arenaceous mat- 
ter, and sediments began to form. Probably the water, at a high 


. 


aha 2 
tal 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 253 


temperature, charged with the principles disengaged from the 
solidified masses, like lava of the present time, attacked the 
stony matters, disintegrated and dissolved them, and subsequently 
formed chemical deposits, or consolidated the débris.”"—Ruschen- 
berger’s Elements of Geology, 


Such is the theory. But it is unphilosophical, 
and strangely in conflict with the laws of nature. 
It is granted that gravity then acted as it now 
does, and it is maintained that every law of nature 
then conditioned and controlled matter as it now 
does. Lyell says that, “the forces formerly em- 
ployed to remodel the crust of the earth were the 
same in kind and energy as those now acting.” (Prin- 
ciples, pref.) It is, therefore, granted that geolo- 
gists do not assume any ground of induction for 
the occurrence of any event in the formation of 
the globe that is not directly shown in the present 
position of the strata, and that they cannot assume 
any geological event to have happened, except 
such as has sprung from the chemical and mechan. 
ical forces to which they attribute their formation, 
Keeping this in view, we shall see that their ac. 
count of cosmogony is utterly preposterous, be- 
cause it is in continuous violation of the laws of 
nature, and by their own principles, destroys itself, 

Now, I maintain that it is, under these circum- 
stances, impossible that such a crust of granite 
as this theory speaks of, could ever have been 
formed over a surging mass of liquid rock 24,000 
miles in circumference, or more; because the one 
is impossible to the other, and for this reason: 
fusion, or a melted state, is a secondary condition 
of matter and presupposes solidification. If, then, 


254 VEDDER LECTURES. 


the chemical force of heat, which is the cause of 
fusion, was in operation upon the matter from the 
beginning, this fusion was a primary and not a 
secondary condition of it. To suppose that the 
world was formed in a state of fusion from centre 
to circumference involves two absurdities: first, 
that the Creator produced an immediate stupen- 
dous effect independent of the force created for 
the cause of that effect; and secondly, that such 
an effect could be produced by a dynamic cause, 
operating at the present rate of its force. H the 
skeptical geologist deny creative power, then the 
theory supposes a vast effect to rise from an obvi- 
ously inadequate cause; or, rather, from no cause 
at all. 
Mr. Bakewell, an eminent geologist, says: 


‘‘The greatest depth to which the geologist can extend his 
observations from the uppermost strata to the very lowest beds 
that have been raised up or laid bare by the natural operations 
that have formed mountains or valleys is less than eight miles: 
a thickness which compared with the bulk of the earth does 
not exceed that of a coat of varnish upon an artificial globe.” 

‘“‘If the earth be composed of a solid crust or shell surround- 
ing a fluid mass, this internal fluid would be subjected to the 
attraction of the sun and moon, or in other words would have 
its regular tides. We are not acquainted with any counteract- 
ing influence to prevent the impulse of these tides upon the 
solid shell.” . 


Now nothing can be clearer than this: Such a 
crust, comparatively so thin in formation, could 
not have resisted the internal surging tidal action, 
which would not only have prevented it from 
solidifying into rock, but by the force of pent-up 
radiation would have burst it into millions of 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 255 


fragments. These, being heavier than the liquid 
below, would have been submerged only to be 
remelted. Added to this, the radiation of such 
fierce heat into all contiguous parts of the at- 
mosphere would have caused a mighty universal 
tempest by a rush of wind from the surrounding 
regions, thus making the formation of such a 
crust forever impossible until the molten globe 
had cooled from centre to circumference. How 
is it that the gentlemen who so complacently 
sneer at Moses, did not see and avoid this blun- 
der in world-making? And how is it that our 
Christian geologists gravely take it as a perfectly 
satisfactory theory so clearly proven that the 
Mosaic account must by all means be made to 
agree with it ? 

This theory further supposes that, in conse- 
‘quence of the enormous radiation, immense 
masses of vapor were formed in the surrounding 
air from which at length all the water came. 
But it is an absurdity, because contrary to the 
law by which vapor is formed, as we know by ex- 
perience. How could our philosophers have so 
strangely forgotten their own rule, that they do 
not assume any event to have happened except 
such as spring from the laws of nature as they 
now act? Vapor is a condensation of watery 
particles exhaled mainly from the ocean by the 
heat of the sun; but this theory reverses the 
whole operation, and, before any ocean existed, 
produces vapor enough from nowhere to make 
all the water upon the face of the modern earth, 
by radiation not from the sun, but from the 


256 VEDDER LECTURES. 


liquid fiery globe into the air, where there was 
not a particle of moisture; radiation and vapor 
both at the same time from the same source, 
which by the condition of things could not be! 
What a miracle is here! The conversion of 
water into wine by Omnipotence, at which infidels 
laugh, was nothing to it; for that was only the 
impartation of the qualities of one liquid to 
another ; but this is creating all the water of the 
globe by means of enormous masses of vapor 
gathered into the air, under circumstances which 
made it an impossibility. Surely, no infidel can 
now find fault with miracles on the score of ab- 
surdity. What a beautiful theory it is! How 
scientifically constructed, and how wisely adapted 
to show the origin of water filling the cavities of 
the impossible crust just spoken of! Who can 
help admiring the depth of penetration by which . 
the sad mistakes of Moses have been exposed, 
which for so long a time have misled men into 
the belief that he told the literal truth ! 

This marvellous theory accounts for the forma- 
tion of the various strata of the modern earth in 
this wise. The granite crust aforesaid was 
covered with mountainous ranges and various 
elevations of this kind of rock upon which the 
winds and storms of centuries beat with the same 
force they exert now, and thus abrasions were 
slowly made until, by the dissolving action of 
mechanical and chemical forces, continents with 
their mountain masses of granite were all com- 
minuted into detritus, sand, gravel, and coarser 
stuff, and washed down into rivers which carried 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY.. 257 


them to the oceans just as is done now, where 
they were spread out over the bottom thousands 
of feet thick, and compacted by the weight of 
the superincumbent water; this formed the 
granite stratum which is the first in the series, 
and uniformly covers the globe. The primeval 
world, thus broken down by the abrasion of 
chemical and mechanical forces then acting with 
no greater energy than they do now, and sub- 
merged beneath the waters, was permanently 
solidified by internal heat and external pressure 
into granite rock again; forming an immensely 
thick floor for subsequent deposits of materials of 
different qualities of rock through long periods, 
borne down, in like manner, from successive up- 
heavals of mountain ranges and extended plains, 
all worn down in a similar way. . Unimaginable 
ages were necessary for this result. But who 
does not see that such a theory is simply an 
inference, not derived from any thing in the strata 
themselves, but from a pure assumption as to the 
sources whence the strata were derived, and the 
methods by which they were comminuted and 
deposited in a horizontal superposition? This 
assumption is moreover based upon another, 
equally unwarrantable: that the chemical and 
mechanical forces of nature, acting as. they now 
do, were adequate to such stupendous effects. 
But is this justified by our knowledge of such 
forces? We may ask, what appreciable diminu- 
tion have they wrought upon naked granite within 
the memory of man? None at all, and what then 
becomes of the theory that whole continents of 


258 VEDDER LECTURES. 


granitic mountain and plain, and subsequently 
others taking their places by upheavals of gneiss 
and mica-schist of secondary formation, were 
thus reduced successively to the condition of 
sand, and laid one over the other by the aforesaid 
forces acting with no greater measure of strength 
and rapidity than they do now? We say it was 
impossible, even if it were demonstrated that 
those successive piles of consecutive mountains 
had existed; but that they did exist, is the 
thing to be proved, before any such argument 
can be formed from their comminution. Until it 
be demonstrated that such mountains must have 
existed by evidence found in the strata them- 
selves, geologists cannot fairly ask that their 
theory shall receive any respect; for suppositi- 
tious premises can only produce supposititious 
conclusions. Such then is the condition in which 
their logic lies. 

In further support of the theory in question, and 
maintaining that the earth we tread is not a new | 
creation but only a reproduction out of old ma- 
terial, geologists say, that in the strata of previous 
wrecks are found the fossil remains of enormous 
animals, the living lke of which are nowhere 
found on this earth; and also of vegetable 
growths of gigantic size. Their existence demon- 
strates the co-ordinate existence of light and 
atmospheric influences as a necessity to it, hence 
they must have belonged to races extinguished 
along with the light and atmosphere of previous 
earths on which they lived. Thus Rev. Dr. 
Buckland says: 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 259 


“The enormous thickness and almost infinite subdivisions 
of the stratified rocks, with the numerous successions which 
they contain of the remains of animals and vegetables differ- 
ing more and more widely from existing species as the strata 
in which we find them are placed at greater depths; the fact that 
a large proportion of these remains belong to éxtinct genera, and 
almost all of them to extinct species that lived, and multiplied, 
and died on or near the spots where they were found, shows that 
the strata in which they occur were deposited slowly and gradu- 
ally during long periods of time, and at widely distant intervals. 
These extinct animals and vegetables could, therefore, have 
formed no part of the creation with which we are immediately 
connected.” 


But this is an assumption not at all necessary 
to account for these fossil remains, and involves a 
fallacy which Dr. Buckland himself shall expose. 
Granting the facts in the case as to the extinction 
of many species of huge animals, such as the mas- 
todon, mammoth, ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, 
and others, we have a few respectably large ones 
left, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopota- 
mus, and crocodile, the fossil remains of whose 
ancestors are found in the same strata with those 
of the extinct species above referred to... This , 
fact is fatal to the theory I am opposing, for if 
that were true, not a living specimen of the latter 
should be now found upon the face of the earth. 
They all should be extinct. But since this is not 
the case, the latter living species afford indubitable 
proof that they belong to the same kind and the 
same earth once inhabited by the former extinct 
animals ; for,our huge animals are the descendants 
of their contemporaries; and this shows that the 
strata entombing the remains found in them, be- 
long to the Adamic world, and not to the wreck 


260 VEDDER LECTURES. 


of any pre-Adamite earth. That there is no mis- 
take about this matter, is clear from Dr. Buck- 
land himself, who says: 


‘‘It appears that the animal kingdom was early established on 
the same general principles that now prevail; not only did the 
four present classes of vertebrata exist, and among mammalia 
the orders of pachydermata, carnivora, rodentia, and marsupialia, 
but many of the genera into which “ving families are distributed 
were associated together in the same system of adaptations and 
relations which they hold to each other in the actual creation. 
. .. The bones of all these animals found inthe earliest series of 
the tertiary deposits are accompanied by the remains of reptiles, 
such as now inhabit the fresh waters of warm countries, e.g., the 
crocodile, emys, and tryonix. ... The second or miocene system 
of tertiary deposits contains an admixture of the extinct genera 
of lacustrine mammalia of the first or eocene series, with the 
earliest forms of genera which exist at the present time... . The 
third and fourth or pliocene divisions of the ¢ertiary fresh-water 
deposits abound in extinct species of pachydermata; for exam- 
ple, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and_ horse, together 
with the extinct genera mastodon. With them also occur the 
first abundant traces of the ruminantia; for example, oxen and 
deer.”—Bridg. Treat., pp. 87-90. 


In the Lower Silurian group of rocks, which is 
next to the lowest of all, are found various kinds 
of fish. 

In the Upper Silurian, fish and reptiles. 

In the Old Red Sandstone, fish, reptiles, and 
birds. 

In the Lias, fisk and huge reptiles. 

In the Lower Oolite, fish, reptiles, birds, insects, 
mammalia. 

In the Upper Oolite, sz, and particles like the 
roe or eggs of fish. 

In the Wealden, great variety of saurians, tor- 
toises, and land-animals. 


tad i a 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 261 


In the Chalk, marine remains, some reptiles, and 
shell-fish. 

In the Eocene, the remains of extinct and living 
species. 

In the New Pliocene of the more recent ‘Per 
tiary strata, the mammoth, mastodon, hippopotamus, 
rhinoceros, tiger, and other carnivorous animals. 

These relics of animals, and others of vegetables 
as well, discovered in the early strata, not long 
since, were said to have had no existence until 
numerous ages after those strata had been formed. 
Sir Charles Lyell held that not less than thirty 
thousand years must have elapsed between the 
age of the mastodon and that of the introduction 
of man; butall this is now proved untrue. In the 
Swabian Alps numerous human skulls have been 
discovered intermixed with the bones of the mas- 
todon and of other huge animals. There were, 
therefore, no distinct ages of fishes, birds, rep- 
tiles, and_ beasts, chronologically separated from 
each other by vast lapses of time; but their re- 
mains are found in rocks formed subsequent to 
the time of their extinction, according to the ro- 
mancing. theories of geologists; and mammalia 
are found in rocks said to have been formed be- 
fore they lived, and also in rocks after they had 
become extinct. 

Thus, it appears, there has been an unbroken 
perpetuation of species from the first of animal 
life, as found, in the early strata, down to the 
present day. But this fact, as given by Dr. Buck- 
land, is fatal to his own doctrine of primeval 
world-wrecks. Beyond doubt, all animals of the 


262 VEDDER LECTURES. 


same species had a common parentage. There 
could not have been any intermediate links lost 
out of the chain, for it is an absurdity to suppose 
that the fossil remains of two independent animal 
creations could coexist in the same strata, having 
the same anatomical structure, and yet have no 
relation in the same line of succession. To sup- 
pose that one became extinct in an age millions 
of years before the other existed and yet the 
remains of both be found in the same strata, 1s 
a wonderful premise for as wonderful a con- 
clusion. The megatherium was a huge crea- 
ture, now extinct, but faintly represented by our 
sloth. The frog of our waters is the small end of 
a noble ancestry, the squatting individual of which 
rivalled in size the bulk of a recumbent ox, and has 
little place in human regard, except among the 
French, who doubtless regret the sad degeneracy ; 
but yet he is a living, leaping argument that the 
huge animal and the small both belong to the 
same batrachian order, though to different periods 
of the same earth. From a large and varied ex- 
amination, Agassiz says: “These facts furnish as 
direct evidence as we can obtain, in any branches 
of physical inquiry, that some, at least, of the 
species of animals now existing have been in exist- 
ence over thirty thousand years, and have not un- 
dergone the slightest change during the whole of 
that period.” All similar opinions are equally valu- 
able, because proceeding from naturalists equally 
honored ; but equally valueless, because all drawn 
from the same source in the strata, and all alike 
contradictious to the Mosaic cosmogony. 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 263 


It is, therefore certain, that whatever may be 
the supposable inconsistencies found in the Mo- 
saic record, the “ scientific” theories of the world’s 
formation are infinitely absurd. To suppose that 
it was formed in a state of gas or of molten rock, 
over which, by the laws of nature, operating: 
as they now do, a crust of granite was formed 
the first eight miles of whose thickness is in the 
proportion of a coat of varnish to an artificial 
globe, is a proposition which evidently confutes 
itself. It is evident that within such a flery mass 
no forces could have existed to have propelled 
upwards the vast mountain ranges of granite said 
to be by abrasions worn down to sand and other 
comminuted matter, and carried by rivers or cat- 
aracts to cover evenly or otherwise the bottom of 
all oceans and seas, and thus become layers of 
evenly distributed matter superimposed upon each 
other in a horizontal position all over the globe. 
Such an assumption is destitute of all probability, 
because it is in conflict with those very laws of 
matter, which they admit operated in the begin- 
ning as they now do, and have always done; and 
in utter conflict with the facts which they are said 
to explain. 

Passing by other points, which time will not al- 
low me now to discuss, I wish briefly to notice 
another matter in which our Christian geologists 
have given aid to the enemy, and that is the 
Noachian Flood. 

The history of this catastrophe is recorded by 
Moses in a lengthened description, and in language 
so precise as to make it forever impossible that 


264 VEDDER LECTURES. 


we can interpret him otherwise than as stating the 
fact of a strictly wziversal deluge. On the sup- 
position that that was his design, we can form no 


additional terms of phraseology that could render 


it more apparent in the following inspired account : 


“And the flood was forty days upon the earth ; and the waters 
increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 

“ And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon 
the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 

‘“And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and 
all the high hills, that weve under the whole heaven, were covered, 

‘‘ Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail ; and the moun- 
tains were covered. 

‘¢ And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, 
and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth, and every man: 

‘© All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in 
the dry /and, died 

“ And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the 
face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, 
and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the 
earth; and Nosh only remained a/ive, and they that were with 
him in the ark. : 


days.” 


This history has long since been a matter of pro- 
fane scoffing to infidels of every grade, from the 
most polished to the most scurrilous of their writ- 
ers; but their arguments have been so often shown 
to be grounded on objections from ignorance, and 
not on objections from knowledge, and so ut- 
terly failing to account for a universal tradition 
remarkably uniform in its main ideas of this matter, 
that they had ceased to be of any importance to 
the infidel in this controversy, until the subject of 
geology furnished new theories for debate. 


“‘ And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty | 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 265 


Some geologists claim that they have shown 
there could have been no such thing asa universal 
deluge since man has been upon the earth. This 
meets with the hearty applause of all infidels, but 
how much more are they elated when Chris- 
tian geologists adopt the same view, contending 
for a partial deluge, which infidelity had no in- 
terest in denying! The Scriptures represent that 
the deluge was caused by the immediate interposi- 
tion of the Moral Governor of the world, for moral 
reasons which imply the necessity of its being made 
universal; accordingly, they say, in the most un- 
mistakably general terms, “A// the high hills that 
were under the whole heaven were covered. Fif- 
teen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and 
the mountains were covered. And a/ flesh died 
that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of 
cattle, and of beasts, and of creeping things, that 
creepeth upon the earth, and every man; a/ in 
whose nostrils was the breath of life, and of a// 
that was in the dry land died, and every living 
substance was destroyed which was upon the /ace 
of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creep- 
ing things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they 
were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only 
remained alive, and ¢key that were with him in 
the ark.” Now it is impossible to escape the con- 
viction that Moses meant all that such varied 
terms of universality crowded together can mean 
in the enunciation of bare fact, except by a per- 
verse effort of a mind pledged to sustain a contra- 
diction at all hazards. 

This catastrophe was brought about for moral 


266 VEDDER LECTURES. 


reasons, but by secondary causes, whose arrange- 
ment for the purpose was in preparation by the 
punitive hand of God for the space of one hun- 
dred and twenty years. Yet Dr. Pye Smith, with 
others, denies the universality of the deluge ; con- 
tending from his geological prepossessions that it 
was local, and but of limited extent, occurring in 
the country immediately surrounding the first 
abode of Adam’s race; and his objections are 
substantially the same as those which infidels 
long before him had advanced. But it is pass- 
ing strange that he did not see the insuper- 


able difficulties which begirt his hypothesis. He 


Says: 


“Tf, in addition to the tremendous rain, we suppose an elevation 
of the bed of the Persian and Indian seas, or a subsidence of the 
inhabited land toward the south, we shall have sufficient causes, 
in the hand of Almighty Justice, for submerging the district, 
covering its hills, and destroying all living beings within its 
limits, except those whom divine mercy preserved in the ark.” 


To this the infidel replies that he will not quar- 
rel with azy supposition, so long as the univer- 
sality of the deluge is given up. In that case, 
not only the inspiration but the truth of the Bible 
must be given up also; only, he suggests a few 
things that put their Reverences into a ridiculous 
position, who adopt this theory to save themselves 
from assuming the ground of open infidelity. 
Thus, say they: If the deluge was circumscribed 
within a particular district, comprising all the hu- 
man race then existing, what was the necessity of 
taking a hundred and twenty years to warn them 
of a calamity which they might have escaped with- 


—— a 


ee ee ee 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 267 


out repentance, by simply moving out of the dis- 
trict? Repentance, therefore, was not necessarily 
an alternative to destruction; and, anyhow, would 
not those who fortunately lived on the outskirts of 
the district have been sure to escape after the flood 
begantorise? Then, again, what was the necessity 
of Noah’s long labor in building the ark, since he 
had only to remove beyond this fated district, 
even if he should have had to accomplish a jour- 
ney of some two thousand miles to the Himalaya 
Mountains? He had one hundred and fifty years 
to do it. God could as easily have gathered 
samples of all animals in that district into a cara- 
van for that safe elevation. Since Dr. Pye Smith 
says, ‘“‘ that for the honor of God and the interests 
of genuine religion, itis our duty to protest against 
the practice of bringing in miraculous interposi- 
tions, to help out the exigencies of arbitrary and 
fanciful theories,” why not make a clean thing of 
it, and get rid of the Ark altogether, with its 
impossible burden of beasts, and provender for 
a whole year? Consistency would seem to re- 
quire it. 

Now there can be no rational answer to this, 
which will not involve our Christian geologists in 
greater confusion; I refer, of course, only to those 
who maintain the theories heretofore spoken of. 
The triumph on the score of argument is clearly 
on the side of infidelity. 

Thus, too,.Dr. McCausland writes (Buzlders of 
Babel, pp. 9, 10): 


‘©The Mosaic narrative of the Flood was considered as record- 
ing that all the dry land on the face of the earth had been sub- 


268 VEDDER LECTURES. 


merged beneath the waters, and that the overflow had carried 
destruction to every living creature, from east to west, and from 
pole to pole, with the exception of Noah’s family and the few 
animals that were with him in the ark. The knowledge of later 
days has corrected our notions in this respect, by showing that 
such an occurrence as a universal submersion of the dry land 
could not have taken place within the last six thousand or even 
sixty thousand years; but there are indications that a partial, 
though, in itself, an extensive subsidence and submergence did 
probably take placein the country surrounding Ararat and the 
Caspian Sea, at no distant period of time, destructive, of course, 
to all the animal creation within its sphere, unless so far as some 
may have been preserved by human exertion. . . . Accordingly, 
it has been shown that the Hebrew text of the record of the flood 
does not represent and necessitate a belief that the Noachian 
deluge was more than a partial or local catastrophe, or that it 
prevailed over any part of the earth’s surface more extensive 
than that occupied by the race of Adam at that early period of 
their history, and destroyed them, with the exception of Noah’s 
family, and the comparatively few species of the animals with 
which they were surrounded in that country.” 


With regard to the philological exegesis of 
the passage, I say, from personal investigation, 
that a greater mistake and misstatement than the 
above were never made in the way of explanation. 
The “‘ Hebrew text of the record of the Flood” 
both presents the fact, and necessitates the belief, that 
the deluge was universal ; for it would be impossi- 
ble to employ stronger phraseology to express 
that fact and enforce that belief. The original 
tenses saens 9:7 +10;)20,;- “Phe totality of the 
high mountains (aveem) which were under the 
totality of the heavens were covered. Fifteen 
cubits high (z.e., above the mountains) the waters 
prevailed; and the mountains (aveem) were cov- 
ered.” Thus the Septuagint reads: “The waters 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 269 


prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and cov- 
ered all the high mountains which were under 
heaven; fifteen cubits upwards was the water 
raised, and it covered all the high mountains.” 
The statement of Dr. McCausland is, therefore, 
exactly the reverse-of the truth. 

To prove that all such flagrant perversions of 
the Scriptures have the precise effect already in- 
dicated, I quote from an infidel publication of a 
recent date: 


‘No intelligent person now believes that it was a total del- 
uge; Buckland, Pye Smith, Miller, Hitchcock, and all Christian 
geologists agree that it was a partial deluge, and the account can 
be so explained. . . . How strange that God should dictate an 
account of the deluge that led every body to a false conclusion 
with regard to it, till science taught them a better! But let us 
read what the account says, and see whether it can be explained 
to signify a partial deluge. To save the Bible from its inevitable 
fate, such men as Buckland, Smith, Miller, Hitchcock, and other 
Bible apologists, it is evident from their writings, were ready to 
resort to any scheme, however wild.” . . 

‘* Had the man who wrote this story been a lawyer, and had he 
known how these would-be Bible believers, and at the same time 
geologists, would seek to pervert his meaning, he could not have 
more carefully worded his account. It is not possible for any 
man to express the idea of a total flood more definitely than this 
man has done. . . . Could any truthful man write this and then 
mean that less than a hundredth part of the earth’s surface was 
covered?... But Jesus and the Apostles indorse the account of 
the deluge. Granted; but does that transform a fable into a fact ? 
They believed the story just as our modern theologians believe it, 
because they were taught it when they were children, and had 
not learned better... . And inthis manifestation of credulity on 
the part of Jesus, we can see the very false estimate placed upon 
him by so large a portion of the people of this country. Let 
the truth be spoken, podea Jesus and all other idols be over- 
thrown.” 


270 VEDDER LECTURES. 


Such is the blasphemous argument to which 
infidelity is helped by the “ sinful indiscretion” of 
Christian geologists. 

But now to return. This “sinful indiscretion,” 
which Prof. Sedgwick attributes to those who 
have advanced and advocated the day-theory 
already spoken of, unfortunately applies with equal 
force to his own; since that interpolates vast ages 
between the first and second verses of Genesis, 
and is in direct conflict with the chronological 
details of literal historical fact as given by inspir- 

zation. Admitting the TRUTH of the Bible, and 
professedly its expounders, Christian geologists 
are bound to be consistent, and to adopt a theory, 
natural and rational, which, though not entirely 
free from embarrassment existing in the nature of 
the subject, is yet free from such stupendous diffi- 
culties I have mentioned as inseparable from geo- 
logical speculation. 

For want of time, I do not now propose to de- 
velop a theory which lies so open to all men, 
that its rejection in favor of the popular one is per- 
fectly amazing. My aim at present is only to show, 
first, the utter inadequacy of the attempts that 
have been made to reconcile the Bible with it, and 
that, so far from this, the writers unwittingly have 
betrayed the cause of Revealed Truth, contrib- 
uting strength and sources of appeal to modern 
infidelity ; second, to confute the representation 
that the strata themselves furnish irresistible proof 
of having been formed at a far earlier period than 
that assigned by Moses to the creation of the 
world; and third, to protect the Scriptures from 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 2/% 


the charge that they impose false facts upon men, 
which, though taken for truth by the Old and New 
Testament writers, really invalidate the entire 
Bible as the absolute truth of God. 

The points of discussion regarding the facts and 
the forces pertaining to an adequate and scientific 
explanation of the strata as first formed, and then 
violently disarranged as we now find them, would 
require a volume of respectable size. I can, there- 
fore,do no more than indicate the method by 
which practical geology may be shown to be in 
perfect harmony with the Mosaic record of the 
creation and of the deluge; and that it stands in 
no need of such misdirected labors as have brought 
both into confusion to the apprehension of multi- 
tudes, and have needlessly given great advantage 
to the enemies of the Bible. Whoever may write 
such a volume or volumes will have the merit of 
counteracting the unhappy influences to which I 
have referred, and of securing the defeat of mod- 
ern infidelity, with its ambitious scientists, upon 
their own chosen ground of attack. Any one who 
is tolerably well acquainted with practical ge- 
ology, and with the sciences of chemistry and 
natural history, can readily scatter this mischiev- 
ous theory to the winds, and exhibit the first 
facts of the Bible as the foundation of inspired 
truth, unimpeached and unimpeachable by its 
enemies. Something in this direction has been 
well done by Professor Martyn Payne, in an 
admirable work entitled ‘“ Physiology. of the 
Soul and Instinct as distinguished from Ma- 
terialism,” published by the Harpers. But this 


272 . VEDDER LECTURES. 


volume is too bulky, too abstruse, and covers too 
much ground for popularuse. It, however, should 
be in the hands of theological students. Now, 
there are only three possible theories that can pre- 
tend to account for the phenomena of the crust 
of the earth. 

The /irst, long adhered to, is known as the Wer- 
nerian theory, long ago advocated by Werner, 
from whom it derived the name. This theory rep- 
resented the whole rocky and earthy matter of 
the strata as originally held in solution by the wa- 
ters of the ocean, and gradually deposited by the 
specific gravities of their various components into 
horizontal strata, subsequently riven and raised 
by chemical causes. But it is now rejected for 
the obvious reason that the waters of the ocean 
are wholly inadequate to hold such a quantity and © 
such quality of matter in solution. 

The second theory is that for the confutation 
of which I have striven to exhibit its assumptions 
and impossibilities, in the main points of its con- 
struction. 

The zhird theory is the true one, because the 
only one that scientifically accounts for the 
sources and the facts of the strata. Whence did 
they come? We say they came immediately and 
directly from the bowels of the earth, by those 
agencies which existed for the purpose. 

First, because they could come from no other 
source, since it is acknowledged that of every 
quality of material found in their composition, 
there is a vast magazine in the depths of the 
globe. 


7 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 273 


Second, because the chemical and dynamical 
agencies by which they have been thrown up 
at various early periods, have operated with pro- 
digious violence, as is proved by the vast number 
of volcanoes and volcanic cones and rents scat- 
tered all over the globe on mountain and plain ; 
but now inactive, because the original force is ex- 
hausted. 


‘In referring to the vast magnitude of ancient volcanoes,” says 
Bakewell, ‘‘I have stated that they had doubtless an important 
office to perform in nature; and can it be unreasonable to be- 
lieve that the earth itself is the great laboratory and storehouse 
where the materials that form its surface were prepared, and from 
whence they were thrown out upon the surface in an igneous, 
aqueous, or gaseous state, either as melted lava, or in aqueous 
solution, or in mechanical admixture with water in the form of 
mud, or in the comminuted state of powder and sand? Inflam- 
mable and more volatile substances may have been emitted in a 
gaseous state and become concrete on the surface. My object 
in directing the attention of geologists to this subject is to show 
that strata may be formed more rapidly than they are generally 
disposed to believe, and that the feeble operation of natural causes 
in our own times, however similar in kind, bear no proportion in 
intensity to the mighty agents that have formed the ancient crust 
of the globe.” —Geology, pp. 351-5. 


There were thousands of them, the majority 
perhaps being mud volcanoes, throwing up at 
intervals the various substances which compose 
the strata, such as silica, alumina, magnesia, 
potash, soda, lime, iron, and other mineral matters 
which enter the composition of rocks and earths. 
Professor Emmons says, that “ geologists in speak- 
ing of limestone seem to be averse to the admis- 
sion that it may form a portion of the interior of 


274 VEDDER LECTURES. 


the earth, or even to admit that it may exist there 
at all; but there seems nota particle of reason 
against the doctrine that it may be as common in 
the earth as silex or any other of the simple or 
compound rocks.”’ The same is true of rock-salt 
about which geologists have conflicting opinions, 
and of chalk, or pure lime as well. “ The largest 
active volcanoes at present existing,” says Bake- 
well, “throw out the different earths intermixed 
with water in the form of mud. Nor should we 
limit the eruptions of earthy matter in solution 
or suspension, to volcanic craters; the vast fis- 
sures or rents which intersect the different rocks 
may have served for the passage of siliceous solu- 
tions to the surface.” ‘Calcareous or cretaceous 
matter is also ejected during aqueous volcanic 
eruptions. According to Ferrara, streams of 
liquid chalk, or chalk in the state of mud, were 
ejected from the mud volcano of Macaluba, in 
Sicily, in 1777, which in a short space of time 
formed: a. bed several feet (thick, 4." Noreaseic 
necessary to suppose, that these aqueous erup- 
tions were always sudden, and attended with vio- 
lent convulsions, for when a passage was once 
opened, they may have arisen slowly and have 
been diffused in a tranquil state; and by gradual 
deposition, or condensation, may have enveloped 
the most delicate animals or vegetables without 
injuring their external form.” (Bakewell’s Introduc- 
t10n, P. 352.) | 

“The matter called crveta by Ferrara, erupted 
from Macaluba, was certainly a soft limestone, 
analogous to chalk; and though the eruption 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 275 


lasted only part of a day, it formed a stratum 
many feet in thickness.” As to this, Mr. Bakewell 
has calculated that at the very moderate rate of a 
foot a month for the chalk formation, it would re- 
quire not more than a period of ninety years to 
form a mass of chalk beds, one thousand feet in 
thickness. And when we consider the thousands 
of extinct volcanoes that existed and were in active 
operation at all points of the earth’s surface, cover- 
ing all varieties of mineral matter, it is amazing how 
any other theory as to the formation of the strata 
could ever have been thought of, much less been 
accepted as rational and satisfactory. The for- 
mation of the earth’s strata was unquestionably 
subsequent to the time when the chemical com- 
binations found in them took place. Silex, iron, 
alumina, potash, soda, lime, and all primitive 
mineral elements must have been treasured up in 
vast masses, in such positions and relations that, 
when reached by aqueous and electric agencies, 
the results were rending by the earthquake and 
fierce chemical combustion beneath the bases of 
Etna; Vesuvius, and all other cones of volcanic 
character. 

It would, indeed, be tedious but easy to show 
in detail how all the phenomena of the strata 
might have been, could have been, and therefore 
were inlaid by the agencies referred to, during 
the first two thousand years of the Mosaic his- 
tory. 

‘The country around Baku,” says De la Beche, ‘‘ would ap- 


pear instructive, not only as respects the emanation of inflam- 
mable gas, but also with regard to the production of one class of 


276 VEDDER LECTURES. 


salses or mud volcanoes. It was near Iokmali, to the east of 
Baku, that, on the 27th November, 1827, flame burst out where 
flame had not been previously known, rising to a considerable 
height for three hours, after which it became lowered to three 
feet, burnt for twenty hours, and was then succeeded by an out- 
burst of mud, covering an area of more than 1,000,000 square 
miles to the depth of two or three feet.” —Geo. Ods., p. 412. 

‘‘In the Mediterranean a very complicated series of contem- 
poraneous accumulations is now in progress, its uneven bottom 
being variably covered, according to conditions, by the matter 
brought into it either in solution or mechanical suspension by 
rivers ; eroded from its shores by the action of the breakers, or 
ejected by volcanoes, the whole, excepting lava currents or large, 
sudden accumulation of ashes and cinders, more or less mingled 
with the remains of organic life, these remains themselves some- 
times sufficient to form long-continued layers or beds.”—Jdzd., 
Dp. 2i: 

“There are few things we can consider more suddenly destruc- 
tive of terrestrial, animal, and vegetable life than these great 
volcanic eruptions, particularly within areas where several feet of 
lapilli and ashes can be accumulated over a considerable area 
within a few days. The whole surface, previously clothed with 
vegetation, with a multitude of land molluscs and insects, with 
many birds and mammals, may be all covered with a thick coat- 
ing of these volcanic products; many of these molluscs and in- 
sects close to the plants on which they have been feeding. In 
regions where bogs prevail, large tracts of these vegetable accu- 
mulations may be buried, with many birds, insects, molluscs fre- 
quenting them, by a thick layer of ashes and lapilli, the subsequent 
consolidation of which, by geological causes, might produce the decep- 
tive appearance of a molten rock having flowed over them without 
producing those effects which would, under the latter supposition, 
have been anticipated,.”—/dzd., p. 124. 


It is therefore apparent that these and other 
agencies might have filled the strata with the re- 
mains of all manner of vegetable and animal life 
during the first two thousand years, and have pro- 
duced many “deceptive appearances,” upon which 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 277 


vast webs of modern geological theory have been 
finely spun. 

It would be easy to show that the formation of 
the strata respectively, was accomplished in a 
rapid manner, and not by a long slow process 
requiring millions of years more or less for the 
successive depositions and hardening of the pri- 
mary, secondary, and tertiary groups. The per- 
fect skeletons of their fauna and the delicate 
structure of their fora never could have been pre- 
served in a single specimen, but by just such 
quiet eruptions of mineral mud, and such sudden 
liberation of gas noxious to animal life as I have 
indicated. These would fix millions of animals in 
each stratum permanently in such natural posi- 
tions as those in which they are now found, by a 
quick process not otherwise possible. 

It would be easy to show that the great coal 
formation, unlike all others, must have been the 
work of the Noachian Deluge sweeping the entire 
fora of the antediluvian world into vast basins 
around strong trees by which it was entangled 
and matted, and sinking down in masses was 
evenly carbonized from bottom to top. All this 
can be shown to have been possible and in con- 
formity with the laws of nature. No necessity, 
therefore, grows out of geological fact for the 
construction of a theory compelling us to the be- 
lief that the earth was formed either in a gaseous 

state, or in one of fiery fusion, or that the body 
of the earth is a vast liquid fiery ocean whose 
billows of molten rock are perpetually rolling a 
few miles beneath our feet. There is no necessity 


278 VEDDER LECTURES. 


for a theory requiring billions of years to account 
for the primary formation of a granite stratum, 
by an impossible abrasion of vast mountain ranges; 
or of granitic continents crumbled into detritus 
to be slowly merged and stratified under the 
ocean; or for the subsequent upheaval of a new 
world of mountains of different kind of rock to be 
worn down in the same way for the superposition 
of the secondary formation; or for others of still 
different qualities to be similarly worn down for 
the thickness of the tertiary, and soon. It isa 
gross absurdity, at war with the facts it pretends 
to explain; at war with the laws of nature as they 
now are known to act; and utterly preposterous 
in setting forth bald assumptions as scientific prin- 
ciples at par with those of astronomy, chemistry, 
and other well-established sciences. On the sup- 
position that the forces of nature in the early 
history of the Mosaic cosmogony acted with far 
greater energy than they now do, as indicated by 
the vast number of extinct volcanoes, the period 
of the first two thousand years was amply suff- 
cient to account for the strata and all the phe- 
nomena found in them. 

The reasonings upon which the aforesaid geo- 
logical theories have been based, are founded 
upon assumptions and not upon facts; hence 
they lose all their accredited value as scientific 
deductions; and the labor expended in bringing 
the Mosaic record in conformity with them is not 
only useless but mischievous and absurd. 

The language of geologists naturally produces 
the impression that geology is a demonstrative 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 279 


science, having laws peculiar to itself, educed 
from and accounting for the facts of the strata. 
But this isa mistake. Practical geology has no 
laws peculiar to itself any more than geography, 
since all knowledge in both departments is ac- 
quired by observation of facts and not by deduc- 
tion from facts. Our theoretical geology has no 
more to do with the real facts of the strata than the 
theory of mesmerism has to do with the anatomy 
of man. Prof. Hitchcock, indeed, lays down 
seventeen fundamental scientific principles in his 
book entitled ‘“‘ The Religion of Geology,’—*“ the 
established principles,” as he calls them, peculiar 
to geological science; but not one of them is 
adequate to the function of a principle in science. 
I will select four of them from an earlier publica- 
tion. He says, for example, ‘‘ The following prin- 
ciples may be considered as well established : 

1. “ The sea and land have changed places at 
least once, and probably oftener in some parts; 
that is, a large part of existing continents once 
formed, and for a long period, the bottom of the 
ocean, from whence it has been subsequently ele- 
vated, either gradually, or by paroxysms by means 
of a volcanic or internal fire.” But this is not 
the statement of a principle. It is only the de- 
claration of an opinion, and of an opinion, too, 
declaring its own perplexity between alternatives 
of belief. Again, he thus states another “ prin- 
ciple: . 

2. “ The whole crust of the globe, or all known 
rocks, have resulted from the operation of second — 
causes, either igneous or aqueous.’ But this is 


280 VEDDER LECTURES. 


not the statement of a principle. It is only the 
record of an opinion founded on partial observa- 
tion; and an opinion, too, in which the phrase 
‘“‘whole crust of the globe” is made synonymous 
with the phrase “all known rocks,” which is an 
error, since a very small proportion of the crust 
has been examined, and the largest must forever 
remain incapable of examination by the agency of 
man. Again, he thus announces another “ prin- 
ciple.” 

3. ‘For the most part, the processes by which 
the stratified rocks, especially the fossiliferous 
ones, have been formed, was such as are now in 
operation on the globe; and consequently must 
have required a great length of time for their 
completion, even if those causes operated in early 
times with greater intensity than at present.” 
But this is not the statement of a principle. It is 
simply an inference founded on an opinion, which 
is disputed and not so likely to be correct because 
contradicted by other opinions of equal authority. 
Another “ principle,” he thus announces: 

4. “The animals and vegetables found in the 
rocks must have lived and died near the spots 
where they are now found, or if drifted at all, it 
could not have been, in most instances, but a 
short distance.” This is a very probable opinion, 
but it 1s a very ridiculous thing to be set forth as 
a principle. Thus I might go on through the en- 
tire list, and each one should appear to every 
man careful of discrimination, the expression of 
an opinion, but destitute of the character of a prin- 
ciple deduced by a scientific process; yet this 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 281 


writer taxes with ignorance and presumption all 
who, with only a little book-learning, question 
the accuracy of his geological theory. But then 
we might ask, why did /e write a book endeavor- 
ing to reconcile scriptural cosmogony with spec- 
ulative geology, if it were not to impart book- 
learning, by which people might be qualified for 
a competent judgment in this matter? And if he, 
like all others making the same attempt, fail, by 
his own showing, why should fault be found 
with those who discover it, for pointing it out, 
to exhibit the folly of reconciling that which needs 
no reconciliation, namely, the word and the works 
of God? 

A true estimate of the labors of our Christian 
geologists is thus made by an author in “ Essays 
and Reviews,” pp. 237, 277, Boston Ed. 


‘If we refer to the plans of conciliation proposed, we find 
them at variance with each other, and mutually destructive. 
The conciliators are not agreed among themselves, and each 
holds the views of the other to be untenable and unsafe. The 
ground is perpetually being shifted, as the advance of geological 
science may require. The plain meaning of the Hebrew record 
is unscrupulously tampered with; and, in general, the pith of 
the whole process lies in divesting the text of all meaning what- 
ever. We are told that Scripture, not being designed to teach 
us natural philosophy, it is in vain to attempt to make out a cos- 
mogony from its statements. If the first chapter of Genesis 
convey to us no information concerning the origin of the 
world, its statements cannot, indeed, be contradicted by modern 
discovery. But it is absurd to call this harmony. Statements 
(as to this harmony being complete) we conceive little calculated 
to be serviceable to the interests of theology, still less to religion 
and morality.” 

“Tt would be difficult for controversialists to cede more com- 
pletely the point in dispute, or to admit more explicitly that the 


282 - VEDDER LECTURES. 


Mosaic narrative does not represent correctly the history of the 
universe up to the time of man. At the same time, the uphold- 
ers of each theory see insuperable objections in details to that of 
their allies, and do not pretend to any firm faith in their own. 
How can it be otherwise, when the task proposed is to evade the 
plain meaning of language, and to introduce obscurity into one 
of the simplest stories ever told, for the sake of making it accord 
with the complex system of the universe which modern science 
has unfolded ?” 

“The treatment to which the Mosaic narrative is subjected by 
the theological geologists is any thing but respectful. The writ- 
ers of this school, as we have seen, agree in representing it as a 
series of elaborate equivocations—a story which ‘palters with 
us in a double sense.’ But, if we regard it as the speculation 
of some Hebrew Descartes, or Newton, promulgated in all good 
faith as the best and most probable account that could then be 
given of God’s universe, it resumes the dignity and value of which 
the writers in question have done their utmost to deprive it.” 


This is severe, but just. The writer believes 
that the Mosaic account is “not an authentic ut- 
terance of divine knowledge, but a human utter- 
ance, which it has pleased Providence to use in a 
special way for the education of mankind’! Of 
course, then, the Bible is a fiction, so far, at least, 
as its foundation-facts are concerned ; and infidel- 
ity is triumphant! But this writer assumes the 
very thing to be proved, and while he justly con- 
demns “these reconcilers,” he unwittingly con- 
demns himself, throwing all into the hands of the 
enemies of the Christian religion and of its sacred 
books. 

Truth, whether discovered by the leaves of the 
Bible or by the strata of the earth’s crust, must 
ever be found in harmony with itself. The the- 
ory of revealed truth sufficiently explains the facts 
of practical geology, or at least shows itself in 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 283 


agreement with them; but the popular theory of 
geology is utterly contradictious to and can not 
be brought into harmony with the Mosaic Cos- 
mogony by the wit of man. And since revealed 
truth is demonstrably the most perfect and oldest 
of the sciences, and geology demonstrably is 
not, there can be no conflict on a scientific basis 
between them; for our theoretical geology here 
spoken of, is not only unscientific, but, as I have 
shown, it is not in accordance with the principles 
which regulate human belief. 

Practical geology, however, is a different thing, 
and all it needs is emancipation from these prepos- 
terous speculations in order to drive from its 
platform all who confidently proclaim them to be 
demonstrated principles of physical science, by 
which they may successfully assail the system of 
revealed truth, essential to the true moral culture 
of man. Whilst Iam ever ready to yield to them 
all they are entitled to, on the score of mental ca- 
pability and acquirement, I hold that because their 
moral nature is uncultivated, such men as Spen- 
cer, Huxley, Darwin, Tyndall, and Haeckel will 
use their advantages not only for the advance- 
ment of natural science, but for the unholy pur- 
pose of making it the instrumentality of mis- 
leading those who confide in them, and of plung- 
ing their followers into the slough of infidelity 
where they themselves are found. These gentle- 
men and others of like mould are not to be trusted. 
They are the advocates of such geological theo- 
ries as are presented in the “ Vestiges of Creation,” 
for the confirmation of which they are fond of 


284 VEDDER LECTURES. 


referring to the admissions and teachings of Chris- 

tian geologists who agree with them on the — 
points I have discussed, in proof that geology 
overturns the Bible, and therefore their own po- 
sition as the adherents of infidelity is, they think, 
, amply justified. Hence their “religion of geol- 
ogy” leads them to discard the Mosaic record, 
the fact of revealed truth, and the Christian re- 
ligion altogether as popular delusions; teaching 
that “development” or “evolution,” as scientifi- 
cally expounded by themselves, should bring men 
logically into the belief of materialism, pantheism, 
or atheism, no matter which, since they are not 
responsible for their belief; and so long as they 
are emancipated from the thraldom of the Bible 
and the church. But it must be remembered that 
these learned men artfully impose a meaning upon 
words which they never have hitherto borne 
among enlightened people. The Scriptures in- 
form us of the fact that “the Lord God made 
every plant of the field defore it was in the earth, 
and every herb of the field before it grew; and 
God said: Let the earth bring forth grass, the 
herb yielding seed, the fruit-tree yielding fruit 
after his kind, whose seed is in itself.” This sug- 
gests the fact of “development” or “evolution” 
from the seeds of things, in which men have be- 
lieved long before our scientists were born; and 
it leads all reasonable men to recognize an om- 
nipotent creative cause in a personal God, “in 
whom we live, and move, and have our being.” 
Denying all this, however, they teach that de- 
velopment is the self-originating process of un- 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 285 


folding all things, material and immaterial, in 
general and particular, whether of inorganic or 
organic matter, or of instinct, or of mind, out of 
one primordial cell, self-sufficient for all possible 
phenomena of mundane existence! And this they 
pretend to prove by the facts of geology. But 
their facts are not facts. They are only opznzons 
based upon observation of facts. The facts of 
geology are all true, but the speculations formed 
to account for them are not. Having shown, as 
I think, that the doctrines of theoretical geology 
are not proven, and, therefore, not entitled to the 
claim of setting aside the common interpretations 
of the creation and the flood, and the doctrine of 
the unity of the human race; the admissions and 
concessions of Christian geologists will not avail 
our scientific infidels so much as they imagine in 
the labor of overthrowing the Bible. 

“But we must not place ourselves in opposi- 
tion to science, for that would be the ruin of 
Christianity.” Exactly so. Hence the duty of 
scholarly and Christian scientists is to uphold the 
oldest of the sciences against all ‘oppositions of 
science falsely so called.” | 

“ But why not yield in the small matter of the 
interpretation of a few words?” say our Chris- 
tian geologists. “In reading the Bible it is of 
the greatest importance to remember that it was 
written under divine inspiration, not to give us 
an exact outline of science, or a condensed hand- 
book of philosophy, but to provide us with a reve- 
lation of moral and spiritual truth for the purpose 
of salvation.” 


286 VEDDER LECTURES. © 


I do not forget the end had in view when God’s 
benevolence was so conspicuously shown in the 
fact of divine inspiration. My point is, that all 
this is logically overthrown by concessions wrong- 
fully made to infidel geologists. For example: 
If the word day, in Genesis 1, does not mean that 
at all, but a vast age of indefinite duration, how 
comes it that divine inspiration did not give us a 
corresponding term of language fitted to express 
precisely that idea? And when the same word, 
declarative of the times of the creative works of 
God, is inserted in the fourth commandment, how 
‘comes it that the figurative instead of the Zeteral 
meaning of the word is used in a legal document 
naturally forbidding such use, and especially when 
no intimation of it is given, and when the people 
to whom the written law was first imparted must 
have understood this, like all other terms of its 
language, in its Zteral sense? Moreover, philol- 
ogy requires us always to understand a word in 
its literal and not in its figurative sense when it is 
first used. Especially must this be so in a simple 
narrative destitute of all figures. How, then, can 
we consistently suppose that divine inspiration 
would employ the smallest term of language ina 
way that must necessarily give a false impression 
as to the meaning of revelation? How often is it 
apparent that the littlest word is the biggest, and 
the most inconspicuous the most important in a 
sentence or a paragraph? This, I think, is the 
exact position of the noun Day and of the con- 
junction AND, both in Genesis 1, and in Exodus 20, 


Re EY em 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 287 


as above indicated. Hence, a yielding of our 
point I conceive to be an abandonment of the 
doctrine of divine inspiration, and [ think I may 
challenge a denial. 

Again, in the instance of the flood, some of our 
Christian geologists, as I have proved, yield an- 
other point of interest vital to the integrity of re- 
vealed truth. If it were only a partial deluge, as 
they hold, how is it that divine inspiration has 
employed exhaustively the most general terms 
and circumlocutory phrases that could be used to 
declare its universality, when other terms and 
phrases could have been just as easily employed 
in accordance with, and descriptive of, the facts in 
the case? Here is a more flagrant instance of 
divine imposition, if the flood were only partzal; 
and I cannot see otherwise than that a yielding in 
this matter is much worse than a “ sinful indiscre- 
tion.” The record of that catastrophe purporfs 
to be an accurate history of literal facts, and the 
language cannot be tortured into a meaning not 
apparent upon the face of the record. I regard 
an effort to do so a sin against God and a crime 
against man, because it is adapted to destroy all 
confidence in revelation. I do not see what can 
be more fatal to all faith in the Scriptures. The 
commonest writer of the present day would justly 
subject himself to the severest censure should he 
be guilty of using terms of description exactly 
opposed to the nature of the things he described. 
A witness upon the stand, if convicted of mislead- 
ing in this way by the artful use of a single word, 


288 | VEDDER LECTURES. 


would subject himself to all the consequences of 
swearing falsely. 

The history of God’s successive acts in creation 
and the ¢zmes of them, the reiteration of the same 
time-term in the moral law, and the precision of 
the historically descriptive language delineating 
the flood, are everywhere in the Bible taken to be 
literally true. These first facts of the world are 
to revelation what the massive stones of a founda- 
tion are to the superstructure erected upon them. 
If, however, these facts are fictitiously presented in 
the Scriptures, their zzspzration at least must be 
given up. That, to me, is as clear as light; and 
when inspiration is given up, the claims to it by 
the sacred writers must be estimated as just so 
many misrepresentations, and then it is not worth 
our while to contend for the rest. 

Jesus Christ indorsed the writings of Moses as 
entirely true; and he represented Abraham as 
saying to the rich man (Luke 16: 31), “If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
they be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead.” He thus exhibited Moses as worthy of 
absolute confidence in all the /acts related by 
him; but this implies an honest and exact use of 
words in relating them, otherwise it would not be 
relating simply, but fabricating, for deluding his 
readers, with no discoverable motive for so doing. 
It is a plain case: if vav (and), if yom (day), which 
have definite meanings put upon them by the 
spirit of inspiration in Genesis 1, and in Exodus 
20:10, 11, may be subjected to the torture of 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 289 


criticism working in behalf of human opinion, 
then other words and phrases may be subjected 
to the same process and for the same purpose. 
Thus Dr. McCausland contends that, “looking 
back into the remote past, beyond the Adamite 
era, as it has been defined in the book of Genesis, 
the man of science discovers, far away in geologic 
times, the flint folk of the quaternary gravels of 
Western Europe. He also recognizes the troglo- 
dyte occupants of the Belgian, German, French, 
and English caves, and the inhabitants of the lake 
dwellings in Switzerland, and of the Kjockmod- 
dens on the shores of the Baltic, all of a later 
period, but long anterior to the Mosaic date of 
Adam's creation ;’ and then he exclaims: ‘ Why 
should the religionist question this evidence of 
the existence of these uncivilized pre-Adamite 
denizens of Europe, and refuse to accept the facts 
it has established, more especially when they are 
not inconsistent with Holy Writ?” To bring the 
Bible in harmony with theoretical geology on this 
point, he says that the “ Mosaic record does not 
pronounce that Adam was ¢he first created of human 
beings on the earth. It only declares that about six 
thousand years ago God said ‘ Let us make a man 
in our image, after our likeness.’” Very inge- 
nious! Who does not see that room is thus left 
for the creation of as many pairs for parents to 
the human race as the fancied discoveries of geo- 
logists may require at the hands of those who 
would reconcile the Bible with science? What 
next may be surrendered at the expense of reve- 


290 VEDDER LECTURES. 


lation to the demands of geology it is hard to 
guess; but I think it is time to plead with those 
friends of the Bible whose ingenious speculations 
turn out to be well-adapted implements of attack, 
which infidelity knows well how to use. Should 
these concessions be made, how does the Bible 
‘provide us with a revelation of moral and spirit- 
ual truth for the purpose of salvation,’ when the 
Old Testament can be brought in collision with 
the New, and a chilling suspicion thrown over the 
whole? With a firm belief in their good inten- 
tions, like that of Uzzah in steadying the ark, I 
think our Christian geologists have made a sad 
mistake; and to relieve the minds of many dis- 
tressed by their volumes, I wish to show that the 
theoretical geology which they advocate, is a very 
different thing from fractical geology, which is in 
harmony with Revealed Truth. 

Infidels are fond of repeating their favorite 
maxim above referred to. ‘No man is responsi- 
ble for his belief.” This, however, is utterly un- 
true, because man has a moral nature which does 
not operate by brutal instinct nor by mechanical 
laws. 

1. All men are unquestionably responsible for 
their conduct. Were it not so, the restraints of 
law would be unjust and oppressive. Where no 
penalty can be exacted, no law can exist, the very 
idea of which grows out of the fact that a moral 
nature implies moral responsibility, which in turn 
implies moral law. If responsibility for his con- 
duct did not rest upon every individual compos- 
ing it, civil society could not exist, because mzght 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 291 


would make right. It must therefore be held 
together by the necessary bonds of law. If its 
members do well, though approved, they are not 
rewarded; because they only do their duty. If 
any of them do ill, they must be punished, be- 
cause the rights of others. must be protected. 
This is so evident that no amount of reasoning or 
of illustration can make it plainer. 

2. Every man acts voluntarily, and his conduct 
is the result of his belief, and bears to it the rela- 
tion of effect to cause. Both partake of the same 
moral quality, and are alike worthy of the same 
praise or blame. If his belief be right, his con- 
duct will be right; if his belief be wrong, his con- 
duct will be wrong. Hence the accuracy of that 
descriptive passage of Scripture: ‘As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he.” 

3. Therefore all men are responsible for their 
belief, since all voluntary conduct flows from it, 
like effect from cause. The only reason why both 
are not treated alike by human law is because of 
its weakness and necessary limitation. It can not 
reach the seat of belief, and so prevent the overt 
acts of human wickedness. It can not go into the 
realm of thought and pronounce a verdict of ac- 
quittal or of guilt as to any prescribed course of 
conduct. But what human law can not do, divine 
law can;-it enters into the domain of the moral 
world, and extends to the thoughts and intents of 
every heart. It can not be otherwise in moral 
government. The Law-giver therefore holds all 
men responsible for their BELIEF, because of their 


292 VEDDER LECTURES. . 


intellectual, moral, and consequent accountable 
nature. 

They who have the means of knowing what 
they ought to do are held responsible in human 
law for not doing it, though the omission be the 
result of pure ignorance; because voluntary 
ignorance does not excuse from imperative duty. 
Now, if this be acknowledged by every compe- 
tent mind as just in human law, why is it not 
equally just in divine law? If, while we have the 
means of finding out facts and truths, which 
naturally form the belief that should issue our 
conduct rightly, our neglect to employ them will 
not make our consequent ignorance available. for 
exemption from the penalty annexed to human 
law, why should it be otherwise with the opera- 
tion of moral law upon all the participants of a 
moral nature? We must intuitively see that if 
there be such a thing as a moral nature resident in 
the human soul, it must be responsible for its be- 
lief. The proposition of infidelity is therefore 
untenable, because untrue. 

_ The proof that Revealed Truth asa Oo to 
the wants of that nature is the oldest, the surest, 
and the best of the sciences is abundant, various, 
and strong in every particular. Put the doubts 
of infidelity and its decisions based upon them 
by the side of it, and see what a manifestation of 
imbecility it makes. At the very lowest water- 
mark of evidence, infidelity itself must grant the 
possibility that the Bible is true. Starting from this 
point, I affirm that a thousand doubts can not 
diminish the weight of probability resting upon it, 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 2 208 


because, from the nature of the subject, all doubts 
arise from ignorance and not from knowledge. 
They are wholly negative, and prove nothing. 
Let me illustrate. 

If you try to convince an untutored mind that 
the sun remains fixed in the centre of the solar 
system, and that the earth, with her sister-planets, 
moves around it, he will object by the evidence 
of his own eyesight against your theory, and as 
you reason with him, he may hold you in de- 
rision. Although he be not able to gainsay your 
positions, yet “ séeing is believing,” and his doubts 
are sufficiently strong to keep him of the same 
mind still. Now who does not know that these 
doubts grow out of his ignorance and not out of 
his knowledge? They prove nothing against the 
truth of your position, and they are worthless, 
simply because they are mere negation. In like 
manner, positive proof is presented for the truth 
of the Bible. Doubts can not destroy that proof. 
The former rests upon knowledge, the latter 
spring from a want of it. When I say, “I know 
that God has spoken to men in the Bible,” I pre- 
sent various proofs in the mass of internal and 
external evidence that support the fact; but 
should I say, “I doubt it,” I must fly for support 
to my own impressions of the incredibility of 
God’s giving a written revelation, or of the al- 
leged facts and seemingly conflicting or inconsis- 
tent statements of the Bible. In the one case, 
positive proof originates moral certainty, and 
doubts can not invalidate that proof. In the 
other, ignorance of a thousand little matters ori- 


294 VEDDER LECTURES. 


ginates doubts, which a little information would 
have driven to the winds. The doubting mind 
can not deny the possibility that the astounding 
declarations of the Scriptures relative to futurity 
may bealltrue. It has no certainty that they are 
not all fact, and without certainty is it not mad- 
ness to treat these awful subjects with indiffer- 
ence, when there is an acknowledged possibility 
that condemnation for sin, judgment, heaven, and 
hell may all be true, all real, all literal fact? In- 
fidelity, then, because a system of doubts, 1S 22 
system of darkness and uncertainty. It rejects 
the Gospel, but provides nothing in its room; it 
robs the soul of solid hopes, and gives her over 
to the inward turmoil and the ceaseless anxiety of 
doubts and fears. Such is the testimony of con- 
verted infidels. | 
Place infinite happiness and misery right before 
you, the idea of their bare possibility is enough, 
or ought to be enough, to make you more uneasy 
than doubts can give you quiet, because the one is 
positive, demanding your consideration on the 
score of common prudence; the other is negative, 
keeping you in hazardous suspense and ruinous in- 
difference. The worst that can happen to the be- 
liever is that heis mistaken, the des¢ that can hap- 
pen to the unbeliever is that he isright. In other 
words, if the unbeliever be right, the believer has 
nothing to fear; but if the beheres be right, the 
unbeliever must spend his eternity in hell. Who 
does not see, then, that all the doubts that ignor- 
ance can start can not outweigh the known possi- 
bility of eternal retribution? Is it not infinitely 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 295 


unreasonable to take the supposed doubtfulness 
of the Christian religion for the same thing as a 
proof of its falsehood ? Do not they who prefer a 
system of doubts to one of possible truth, as really 
lay aside their reason as the most extravagant 
enthusiast? Here, then, we meet the doubter of 
the truth of Scripture, and show him by his own 
reasoning to be the most unreasonable of men; 
because his doubts, which are mere negatives, he 
takes for positive proof against the Bible. His 
lack of knowledge he estimates as more import- 
ant in this decision than the little knowledge that 
he has! If this be not folly, we know not what is. 

But what shall be said of those whose doubts 
arise from smaller matters, as some piece of bibli- 
cal history, or some remote fact whose brevity of 
relation affords room for cavil, or some alleged 
discrepancy of a few texts? There are among 
skeptics a great variety of opinion between con- 
firmed infidelity and the transient scruples of oc- 
casional doubters. Allowing them all they as- 
sert, what does it amount to? Their magazine of 
facts, which they draw upon as from an armory 
for weapons against Christianity, is found in the 
Old Testament, whose history covers the first 
four thousand years of time. We need hardly 
remark that, by the necessity of the case, brevity 
of relation is a striking feature of the Bible, and 
no doubter can deny but that an expanded his- 
tory of details would have cleared up every dark 
piece of history found in it. This, however, 
would have defeated the design for which it was 
given, namely, to be a rule of faith, by making 


296 VEDDER LECTURES. 


it an impracticable thing “to search the Scrip- 
tures” as our Saviour directs. And as they were 
not given for the mere purpose of transmitting 
historical fact, but for teaching and illustrating 
the doctrines of grace for human salvation, we 
see great wisdom in adapting a full brief to the 
opportunities and advantages of the men of allages. 
The material for doubts is small indeed when 
compared with that which defies the ingenuity of 
objectors. After all that can be said, there is 
nothing like certainty attained against any state- 
ment of the Bible. Doubts can not demonstrate 
falsehood, nor invalidate truth. Who does not 
see how prudence dictates, that cer¢ainty ought to 
be attained by the unbeliever before he ventures 
upon eternal realities? Is it wise for even sup- 
posably immortal beings to stand doubting, 
trifling, slumbering over the great matters of re- 
ligion, when there is danger of disputing and 
doubting and faltering until surprised. by the 
summons to meet their God? What then, if it be 
found that judgment, heaven, and hell be just as 
the Bible represents them? Will it be any con- 
solation to the unhappy that they have doubted 
until convinced by fiery arguments? Will it be 
any alleviation of their misery that they did not 
intend to be lost? Will their mistakes obviate 
their punishment? Or will they not rather up- 
braid themselves as fools and madmen for having 
put a few doubts against an awful possibility, and 
staked the interests of their souls upon the issue? 

Noah, being warned of God, built an ark to the 
saving of his house. The wicked laughed him to 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 297 


scorn, but he yielded to the balance of argument. 
He believed he had positive proof that God had 
spoken. All the doubts of his skeptical neigh- 
bors which proceeded from ignorance could not 
outweigh his positive knowledge. But what if 
there had been no flood, would not the condition 
of Noah have been as good as that of other men? 
Lot verily believed that Sodom would be de- 
stroyed, and accordingly fled from the city, 
against the remonstrances of his kinsmen. But 
what if there had been no such destruction, would 
not Lot have been as safe as other men? Joseph 
believed that there would be seven years of 
famine in Egypt, and he therefore laid up abun- 
dance of corn. But what if there had been no 
famine, would he not have fared as well as those — 
who had made no such provision? The Bible 
has warned us against ‘the wrath to come,” and 
taught us how to avoid it. We have positive 
evidence that God has revealed his will therein 
for human salvation. But what if there be no 
wrath to come, will the Christian be worse off 
than other men? How did it turn out with those 
who despised the warnings? The flood did come, 
and swept them allaway. Where was Noah then ? 
Ah! it was his turn to rejoice. The storm of fire 
did come. Where was Lot then? Safe upon the 
plain. The famine in Egypt did come. Where 
was Joseph then? Exalted to dignity and honor, 
next to Pharaoh. And the wrath to come will 
come. Where will be the Christian then? Exult- 
ing in glory. Where will be the scoffer and the 
doubter then? Let us remember, it is easier now 


298 VEDDER LECTURES. 


to fly from “ wrath to come” than it will be to 
fly when it has come. I care not, therefore, what 
may be the nature or the number of infidel doubts, 
they can not weigh against the jpossidility of a 
judgment, and of a hell to follow it. I might start 
at this point and pile up probability upon proba- 
bility, until the highest should be gained, equal to 
moral certainty. You might, on the other hand, 
pile up doubt upon doubt, you never could ar- 
rive at moral certainty. The Christian, therefore, 
has infinitely the advantage in his position and 
prospects, and the man who deliberately chooses 
the opposite ground contradicts himself all the 
time in all other pursuits, flies in the face of all 
analogical reasoning by which he is guided in 
other matters, and writes himself a madman ; for 
he who admits the dare possibility of eternal retii- 
bution is manifestly guilty of the greatest pre- 
sumption when he treats the Gospel with indiffer- 
ence, since by his own concession he may Zossi- 
bly be in hell the next hour. 

The Bible asks no favors, the Christian religion 
asks no favors ; all they do ask is, that men will in- 
vestigate their claims honestly, conscientiously, 
consistently ; and adjudicate upon evidence pre- 
sented, just as they do upon evidence in a court of 
justice, by which they give verdicts that determine 
questions of vital interest to their fellow-men. 

“A clergyman, now deceased, once told the 
writer (Dr. Jetter) that he heard the distinguished 
and eloquent John Randolph, of Roanoke, say 
that he was in his early years inclined to infidel- 
ity. At that time, through the influence of Mr. 


THEORETICAL GEOLOGY. 299 


Jefferson and the popularity of the French revo- 
lution, it was common for well-educated young 
men to avow their want of faith in the Bible. 
Mr. Randolph said that, scorning to adopt opin- 
ions without examination, he resolved to investi- 
gate the claims of Christianity to divine inspira- 
tion. He deemed it fair, as the Bible was a record 
of the Christian religion, to read that first. He 
commenced a careful and searching examination 
of it, not doubting but that he should find the 
proofs of its falsehood. He had not read through 
it, he stated, before he was convinced that a mole 
might have composed the Principia of Newton 
as easily as uninspired men could have written 
the Bible. His conduct was not always in har- 
mony with his convictions; but subsequently, 
through all the vicissitudes of his remarkable and 
somewhat eccentric life, he was an open, earnest 
defender of Christianity.” 

When the Scriptures and the religion founded 
upon them are thus dealt with, the result must be 
an abiding conviction that they are of God, and 
therefore possess divine authority for the regula- 
tion of human conduct. Christianity alone locates 
an objective hope, like a lighthouse, upon the far- 
ther shore; which throws its beams athwart the 
intervening utter darkness for the encouragement 
and consolation of the soul anxious about the fu- 
ture. That utter darkness rests upon the inland 
sea of death. And when you slip your cable for 
the crossing, what is there but the lighthouse of 
Christian objective hope by which you can steer 
for the better land with no fear of missing your 


300 VEDDER LECTURES. 


reckoning? To this idea, in closing, I accommo- 
date an old and elegant ode upon a lighthouse, the 
blaze of which was seen at night, from a distant 
hill. 


““The scene was more beautiful far to my eye, 

Than if day in its pride had arrayed it ; 

The land breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky 
Looked as pure as the Spirit that made it. 

The murmur rose soft as I silently gazed 
On the shadowy waves’ playful motion, 

From the dim distant hill, till the lighthouse fire blazed, 
Like a star in the midst of the ocean. 


““ No longer the joy of the sailor-boy’s breast 

Was heard in his wildly breathed numbers, 

The sea-bird had flown to her sea-girdled nest, 
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers. 

One moment I looked from the hill’s gentle slope, 
All hushed was the billow’s commotion, 

And thought that the lighthouse looked lovely as hope, 
That star of life’s tremulous ocean. 


‘‘ The time is long past, and the scene is afar ; 

Yet when my head rests on its pillow, 

Will memory sometimes rekindle the star 
That blazed on the breast of the billow. 

In life’s closing hour, when the trembling soul flies, 
And death stills the heart’s last emotion, 

Oh! then, may the seraph of mercy arise, 
Like a star on eternity’s ocean.” 


APPENDIX. 


ee Nes 


THE MEANNESS OF INFIDELITY. 


ON the eleventh page of this volume, I quoted 
the following from a “ History of Creation,” by 
Ernst Haeckel, professor in the University of 
ena: 

“We need not trouble ourselves at all about the 
attacks of theologians and other unscientific men, 
who really know nothing whatever of nature.” 

To show the meanness of infidelity in the malig- 
nancy of such utterances, I beg leave to submit a 
quotation from the Dazly Witness of New York. 


THE DEBT OF SCIENCE. 


“The last regular ‘monthly concert’ at the 
Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn, the 
Rey. Dr. Scudder, pastor, was very appropriately 
made the occasion of considering the vast amount 
of work done by Christian missionaries for the 
advancement of science. By invitation of the pas- 
tor, George May Powell, of the Oriental Topo- 
graphical Corps, repeated a section of a series of 


% 


3 


302 VEDDER LECTURES. 


geographical papers recently prepared and read 
by him before the American Institute. This sec- 
tion is devoted to the discussion of the work done 
by the missionaries of the fifty-four various boards 
and societies for the advancement of geographic 
and kindred sciences. He said: 

“Probably no source of knowledge in this de- 
partment has been so vast, varied, and prolific, at 
so insignificant expense to the world, as the inves- 
tigations and contributions of these missionaries. 
They have patiently collected and truthfully 
transmitted a great amount of exact and most 
valuable geographical knowledge. All this has 
been done without money and without price, 
though it would literally have cost millions of 
treasure to secure the same by any other means. 
This work, as a civilizing and also a commerce- 
creating agency almost imponderable in its re- 
sults, may be written on the financial balance- 
sheets of the nations as so much ‘net gain;’ all 
this as simply parasitic growth on the Tree of 
Life they go to plant. 

“‘Much of discovery, especially in regions most 
difficult to reach, which has been credited to ad- 
venturous and enterprising travellers and explor- 
ers as their own, would be more correctly stated if 
written down as simply forwarded through them 
to the scientific world by these missionaries. 

“One of the first steps in the march to conquer 
the topographical mysteries of unknown lands is 
to acquire knowledge of the languages of the peo- 
ples inhabiting them. On this head, he quoted as 
follows from Warren in ‘ These for Those :’ ‘Our 


APPENDIX. 303 


missionaries on the Pacific coast are thought to 
have demonstrated that these thousands of islands 
were once settled by men of acommon origin. So 
the original seed or parent stock is satisfactorily 
ascertained. How came they to this result? By 
reducing those many languages to form and 
bringing them within the range of philosophical 
investigation and classification.’ The Ethnologi- 
cal Society, in New York, rarely holds a meeting 
where papers from missionaries on this topic are 
not read. Missions have furnished the means, 
says one, ‘that enable the German in his closet 
to compare more than two hundred languages, 
one with another. He has at his command the 
most unpronounceable words in which Eliot 
preached ; the monosyllables of China; the lordly 
Sanscrit; the multifarious dialects of modern In- 
dia; the smooth languages of the South Sea 
Islands; musical dialects of the African tribes; 
harsh gutturals of the American Indians, and also 
the languages of various Oriental peoples.’ Says 
Colburn: ‘ But for the researches of missionaries, 
the whole peninsula of Farther India would be in 
a great part ¢erra incognita.’ 

“Almost equally important steps in this march 
are those by which we enter the realms of botany, 
geology, zodlogy, astronomy, and other depart- 
ments of knowledge germane to this subject. 
Professor Whitney, of Yale College, and Secre- 
tary of the American Oriental Society, writes: 
‘Religion, commerce, and scientific zeal rival one 
another in bringing new regions and peoples to 
light, and in uncovering the long-buried remains 


304 VEDDER LECTURES. 


of others, lost or decayed; and of the three, the 
first is the most pervading and effective.’ 

“The outposts of the mission work are station- 
ary, and scattered like the stars above, over the 
earth beneath. They are commanded by those 
thoroughly trained in academic shades, and who 
are quite as competent to throw the rays of the 
lamp of science as of ethics into the darkest cor- 
ners of regions otherwise unknown. This perma- 
nence of location, and this scholastic training, to- 
gether with their great number, combine condi- 
tions, inexpensively insuring a great amount, as 
well as good quality, of scientific work. 

“<T have seen,’ says Warren, ‘a letter from the 
celebrated astronomer Herschel, expressing thanks 
to a missionary in Persia, Rev. T. D. Stoddard, 
for important meteorological discoveries. He 
pledged to Mr. Stoddard a vote of thanks from 
the Royal Society.’ 

“Carl” Ritter, ‘the prince of geographers, 
confesses he could not have written his vast 
works, ‘Erdkunde’ and others, without the aid of 
material collected and transmitted by missiona- 
ries. He says: ‘ Their communications, diffused 
through essays, quarterlies, and various other pub- 
lications, have become a part of the world’s 
knowledge.’ 

“Champion’s essays on the botany and geology 
of South Africa in SiJliman’s Fournal, and on 
the topography of that region in the American 
Fournal of Science, are a few only among the 
works of that talented and cultured Christian gen- 
tleman, who gave his fortune as well as his life 


APPENDIX. 305 


to one of the most difficult missions in the world. 

“Said Professor Silliman: ‘ It would be impossi- 
ble for the historian of the islands of the Pacific 
to ignore the important contributions of missiona- 
ries to the departments of science.’ 

“The zodlogical specimens sent by Rev. Wil- 
liam Walker, from Africa; papers sent the Ameri- 
can Association of Science, by Rev. Ebenezer Bur- 
gess, on the geology of the Cape of Good Hope; 
and the exceeding important work of Justin Per- 
kins, in determining the geology of Persia, are 
also cases in point. The New Englander says that 
‘Zulu Land,’ by Grant—for twenty years a mis- 
sionary in Africa—‘has the accuracy of a photo- 
graph; and Anderson says, ‘ Williams’ Middle 
Kingdom,’ in 1200 pages, is probably the best ac- 
count ever published of the Chinese Empire. 

“ Balbi, one of the great cyclopedists, is most 
hearty in his acknowledgment of the value of 
the scientific researches of missionaries, and Agas- 
siz testifies that: ‘Few are aware how much we 
owe the missionaries for both their intelligent ob- 
servation of facts and their collecting of speci- 
mens. ‘We must look to them,’ says Agassiz, 
‘not a little for aid in our future efforts for the ad- 
vancement of science.’ ‘The Missionary Herald, 
says Carl Ritter, ‘is where the reader must look 
to find the most valuable documents that have 
ever been sent over by any society, and where a 
rich store of scientific, historical, and antiquarian 
details may be seen.’ 

“Tt would require money enough to endow a 
society to keep even one man so long—who 


306 VEDDER LECTURES. 


should be, in point of intellect, character, and cul- 
ture their peer—in the place of many of these 
field-marshals of science. Moffat has worked fifty 
years in Africa, and many others as long, or 
nearly so, elsewhere. Over two hundred of them 
are in the south of Africa; five hundred more are 
keeping watch of stars and gales, heat and cold, 
by the streams and mountains of India, studying 
its flora and fauna, and questioning stone and 
shell, language and race. They and many others 
are mapping and picturing and ‘ writing up’ val- 
ley, plain, and mountain on continent and island, 
at the same time that they are lighting the fires 
on the altars of education of both mind and heart. 

“Of the work of ‘the Kaffir Missionary, Living- 
stone,’ in these departments of science, as well as 
religion, we feel scarce worthy to speak. The 
sweetness and the sadness, the romance and 
reality, the grief and the grandeur of the story 
seem to say: ‘ Stand before it in silence, and with 
head uncovered.’ 

“My own intercourse with missionaries—look- 
ing at this work with the eye of a business man 
—when in Northern Africa and Western Asia for 
the Oriental and Topographical Corps in 1873, 
fully corroborates the testimony cited in this pa- 
per; as has also my subsequent correspondence 
with them in the same connection. For versa- 
tility, originality, and executive ability, not only 
in the work they were sent to do, and are doing 
so well; but in their action as the foremost men 
and women in the East, to promote geography 


APPENDIX. 307 


and its attendant sciences, they stand before the 
world in a light almost past praise. 

‘In our country, missionaries have borne a part 
in the making up of its geography, a brief résumé 
of which would make a volume of rare value. We 
will take only time, on this occasion, to barely 
mention the intrepid and heroic Christian patriot- 
ism of Dr. Whitman—his statesmanship, we may 
say as well—in securing to us the gold, the glory, 
and the grand territorial expanse of the Pacific 
coast. In his mission work in the wilds of the 
Rocky Mountains, he discovered a plot to cheat 
our country out of nearly half of its present na- 
tional domain. He mounted horse in midwinter, 
and struggled for months, through difficulties and 
dangers almost past description, to reach the 
frontier of civilization. On arriving at the capital 
at Washington, he found the terms of the fraudu- 
lent treaty (to trade it off for a paltry fishing- 
ground of not one-thousandth part its value) not 
only negotiated, but written out. It had been 
represented as inaccessible and valueless. He 
demonstrated its accessibility by returning over 
the mountains, the following spring, with near 
one thousand souls and their wagons and flocks.” 


‘In view of these things, of which Professor 
Haeckel should have been aware before penning 
his little squib, it ill becomes these “scientists” to 
cast their reproaches upon men to whom the 
world is far more indebted than to themselves. 


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